PRIVATE BUSINESS

Broads Authority Bill  (By Order)

Order for Second Reading read.
	 To be read a Second time on Tuesday 13 March.

Oral Answers to Questions

TRANSPORT

The Secretary of State was asked—

Local Buses

David Crausby: What plans he has to hold operators and local authorities to account for the performance of local bus services.

Douglas Alexander: The Government plan to introduce a new performance regime to improve the reliability and punctuality of bus services. Our proposals, set out last December, will require both operators and local authorities to account for the performance of local bus services, and will include strengthened penalties where performance fails to improve.

David Crausby: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply and I welcome the increased powers, which will enable a better service for passengers following what was a disastrous privatisation. How will he ensure, however, that operators and local authorities perform effectively in the delivery of free national bus travel for pensioners?

Douglas Alexander: I can assure my hon. Friend that a great deal of work is under way with local authorities, as the concessionary bodies, and with bus operators to ensure an effective start to the national concessionary bus travel system, which I am sure will be welcomed by many in the House.

Stephen Hammond: The Secretary of State knows that the real way to hold authorities and operators to account is via traffic commissioners. However, in the north-west, for instance, from Liverpool all the way through to Leeds there is one traffic commissioner and two staff. The Government are not funding traffic commissioners. Will they pledge to do so today, so that there can be real accountability?

Douglas Alexander: We are looking at traffic commissioners' powers in the context of the "Putting Passengers First" document, which we published in December. One other principal inhibitor to their ability to do the job that we would wish has been the lack of effective performance data. Through addressing that issue, we are seeking to strengthen traffic commissioners' ability to get a grip on these problems.

Ashok Kumar: Owing to low car ownership, most of the constituents in the rural part of my constituency rely on the bus service. However, there is a single dominant operator that decides to make changes to the service as it sees fit, which causes a great deal of distress to my constituents. How will the changes that my right hon. Friend has introduced ensure that my constituents get a reliable service and do not experience the distress that they have suffered so far?

Douglas Alexander: Having declined in the decade after 1986, bus subsidy in England has almost doubled in real terms since 1997-98. The "Putting Passengers First" document that we published in December recognised that, alongside the additional subsidy that has been put into bus services in constituencies such as my hon. Friend's, there needs to be a strengthened governance regime, which is why we will introduce proposals in due course.

Alistair Carmichael: Does the Secretary of State accept, however, that if local authorities and passenger transport executives are to be accountable for the performance of local bus services, they will require not just extra powers but resources? To that end, will he, as part of his consultation, consider giving some or even all of the money that goes to operators through the fuel duty rebate to local authorities and PTEs?

Douglas Alexander: We obviously keep such matters under review, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we are in discussions with the PTEs and the passenger transport authorities in the light of the document that we published. However, as I said, the strength of our commitment to subsidising the bus industry has been manifested by the scale of increase in recent years. The challenge is to make sure that that money is used effectively, and we are certainly giving consideration to that.

Lindsay Hoyle: Does my right hon. Friend share my concern at the fact that the leader of Chorley council is claiming that he, not the Government, is introducing free national bus travel? Will my right hon. Friend confirm who is funding and introducing it?

Douglas Alexander: My hon. Friend brings to my attention something that I was not aware of before this Question Time. If the gentleman whom he describes is also willing to stump up the extra £250 million that the Government are putting into a national concessionary travel scheme, I should certainly be very happy to take forward that discussion.

John Redwood: What role will competition play in delivering better services and lower fares, and how will the Secretary of State avoid the regulators becoming anti-competitive and pro-monopoly?

Douglas Alexander: If one looks back at the experience of far too many communities since the deregulation of bus services in 1986, one sees that the somewhat fundamentalist views of competition, which have been more prevalent among Opposition Members than Labour ones, have been defied by experience. We recognise that competitive bus services can be effective, but that is not being manifested in enough communities today. To judge by the bus services that are operating effectively—for example, in communities such as Nottingham, York and Brighton—such a service involves not simply the fresh gusts of competition but an effective partnership with local authorities. We are keen to make sure that the architecture for that partnership is extended across the country.

Biofuels

Alan Whitehead: What action he plans to take to encourage greater use of biofuels in advance of the introduction of the renewable transport fuel obligation.

Stephen Ladyman: The renewable transport fuel obligation is due to come into effect in April 2008, providing a significant and secure market for biofuels in the UK. In advance of that, the Government continue to support biofuels mainly through fuel duty incentives. Sales of biofuels doubled between 2005 and 2006, reaching more than 250 million litres.

Alan Whitehead: Is my hon. Friend aware that there has been a reversal in price differential between biodiesel and low sulphur diesel since the renewable transport fuel obligation was announced, and that it will take an increase in production of some 400 per cent. for the industry to meet the targets for 2008? Will he talk to colleagues in the Treasury to ensure both a supply and uptake of biofuels in time to ensure that those obligations can be met in 2008?

Stephen Ladyman: I can of course assure my hon. Friend that I talk to colleagues in the Treasury on those matters. As he rightly implies, incentives are a matter for the Chancellor. I am keen to see that the RTFO is a success and that we also support small renewable manufacturers. To that end, we have just published a consultation document that specifically asked some questions to which my hon. Friend might like to contribute some answers, so that we can inform the way in which the RTFO is developed to ensure that it is a success for everybody.

Gary Streeter: Is the Minister aware that throughout the country there are many micro-companies producing biofuels—or trying to—which are bamboozled by the tax regime that they suffer? Sad to say, they are often treated with a heavy hand by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. Will he please have a much more focused dialogue with his colleagues in the Treasury to stop them undermining the good work that his Department is doing?

Stephen Ladyman: I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are having good discussions with the Treasury. I do not believe that people are bamboozled by the rules and I am sure that the Revenue will do everything that it can to ensure that people are unbamboozled, if necessary. I encourage the hon. Gentleman and his constituents to respond to the consultation document, as it asks some specific questions about how we can best support micro-providers. It is important that we hear first-hand from them what they look to us to do.

Alan Simpson: As a supporter of the development of sustainable biofuels, I am sure that the Minister will be as aware as I am of the "Dispatches" programme last night, which pointed out that were the RTFO to be a success, the UK could end up importing biofuels in a way that was even more damaging than the polluting fuel base that we have now. Will he take a lead role in co-ordinating some of the major research establishments in the UK, especially those involved in marine research on the possibility of deriving biofuels from micro-algae, so that we can ensure that the UK demand for biofuels is met by UK sustainable supply?

Stephen Ladyman: The sustainability of the biomass used to produce renewable fuels is key to the success of the RTFO. If we do not produce the renewable fuels sustainably, there is no point doing it. There will be a reporting mechanism in the RTFO to ensure that biofuel is being derived from sustainable sources. We will also ensure that the RTFO is structured in a way that encourages the production ultimately of second generation biofuels and biofuels produced from other forms of biomass, as my hon. Friend has suggested. I also encourage him, and any contacts that he may have, to respond to the consultation document so that we may build those issues into the RTFO.

Adam Price: A 5 per cent. biofuel mix can, almost by definition, make only a small contribution to combating climate change. A year ago not a single car in the Government fleet had been converted to use an 85 per cent. biofuel blend. How many have been converted since then?

Stephen Ladyman: The Government car fleet does not use E85 technology. The hon. Gentleman says that 5 per cent. can make only a small contribution, but that 5 per cent. is over the entire country's land transport network, and that is the equivalent of taking 1 million cars off the road. We have also said that we will go beyond 5 per cent. as soon as we can guarantee that it can be done from sustainable sources, because—as I said in answer to the previous question—if we cannot produce the biomass sustainably, there is no point doing it. So we will go as far and as fast as we can, commensurate with it being done sustainably.

Maritime Transport Policy

Michael Connarty: What response he has made to the European Commission Green Paper on maritime transport policy.

Stephen Ladyman: The European Commission has allowed a year-long consultation period for member states to consider the EU maritime Green Paper. The consultation period ends on 30 June 2007.
	The UK public consultation exercise closed on 28 February. We are analysing the responses, alongside contributions made at the national stakeholder conference on 12 October 2006. Both sets of comments will inform the Government's response to the Commission.

Michael Connarty: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. The Department's letter of 11 December was sent to 96 public organisations, but for some reason not to any of the relevant Select Committees of this House. The European Scrutiny Committee has called for a debate on this matter to be held this month, but should not the Government between now and June ask the Select Committees to look at that policy document, which covers transport, the environment, and trade and industry? The European Scrutiny Committee deserves commendation, rather than condemnation, for our scrutiny of European business.

Stephen Ladyman: The appropriate process is for the Government to notify the European Scrutiny Committee that there is European legislation to be looked at, and the Committee then advises us on how that should be done. As my hon. Friend says, the Committee has arranged for the document to be debated in Standing Committee in a few weeks. I hear what he says, and I welcome contributions from other Select Committees and hon. Members about the development of our proposals. However, it is not for me to tell the Select Committees covering transport or the environment what they should be considering. I suspect that their Chairs might look askance at any interference by me with their autonomy.

Julian Brazier: The document contains proposals for a feasibility study for a European coastguard, talks about a common maritime space—a first step towards European territorial waters—and even goes back to the idea of a European register, which would be the first nail in the coffin of the red ensign. Does the Minister not regret that he welcomed last year's Green Paper on preparing for future mobility, as to a large extent it paved the way for the current document? Is he really standing up for our interests in Europe?

Stephen Ladyman: It is a bit rich for a representative of the party that left the red ensign almost non-existent to come to the Dispatch Box and criticise this Government, who have been responsible for that flag's resurgence. The red ensign now flies over a very significant fleet. Shipping is this country's third biggest export earner, but it disappeared almost entirely under the Conservatives.
	The Government support some of the Green Paper's recommendations, but not others. We do not support the EU coastguard idea and we need to know what the term "maritime space" means, as it is not well defined. We need to engage properly in the discussions and stand up for British interests, but this Government have rebuilt the red ensign and will take no lectures from the Conservatives about how we should do that.

Belford Rail Station

Alan Beith: If he will visit Belford, Northumberland to discuss plans for reopening the railway station.

Tom Harris: I currently have no plans to visit Belford. It is up to the relevant regional and local authorities to develop a business case with Network Rail for proposals of this nature. I am not aware that any detailed proposals have been put forward to reopen the station at Belford.

Alan Beith: But they have been, twice. If the Minister tried to come to Belford, he would not be able to get off the train. It stops there twice a day, but the building of a platform has been obstructed by bureaucracy. One element of that is that Network Rail has refused to submit the safety case to the Health and Safety Executive. The Minister is relatively new, but cannot he knock some heads together and secure some progress so that Belford people can start raising money—as they have done before—to get the platform built? When that happens, they can leave the car and take the train.

Tom Harris: I am always eager to knock heads together, but local stakeholders must put a business case together and raise the money that is needed. They do not need my permission to do that. The first Northumberland local transport plan included reopening Belford station, but the right hon. Gentleman will be aware that that proposal is missing from the current LTP.

Ronnie Campbell: If the Minister does get off his backside and look at Belford, will he pop into Blyth Valley to see the rail link from Blyth to the Tyne and Wear metro system? That link has been disused for a long time, but we are trying to open it up again.

Tom Harris: I think my hon. Friend may have just made me an offer I cannot refuse.

Buses

Ann Coffey: what assessment he has made of responses to his "putting passengers first" proposals on buses.

Gillian Merron: The Government's proposals for a modernised framework for improving bus services have been widely welcomed by bus operators, passengers and local authorities alike. We are working closely with stakeholders to take forward our proposals, in preparation for a draft road transport Bill.

Ann Coffey: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. If we are to persuade people in Greater Manchester and Stockport to make better use of public transport, we need to improve bus services. Will she confirm that in the forthcoming review of the bus service operating grants she will look at ways of tying that grant more into improved bus performance, including better reliability?

Gillian Merron: I am glad that my hon. Friend, who is a longstanding champion of better bus services for local people, welcomes the Government improvements to bus services. I can indeed confirm that we are talking to key stakeholders about how we can better focus bus subsidy money, which has just about doubled in England since 1997, so that we can see improvements in performance as well as in the environment.

Robert Key: Local authorities such as Salisbury district council are keen to put passengers first, but the present regime militates against that. The council does not have sufficient money to subsidise deserving routes on behalf of scattered rural communities and at the same time pay for the free transport by bus service that has been ordained by central Government. It simply does not add up. Will the Minister please make sure that the Treasury understands that, if it is sincere about putting passengers first, it has to put its money where its mouth is?

Gillian Merron: Over the past 10 years we have indeed been putting our money where our mouth is: some £2.5 billion of revenue funding goes to support the bus industry through a wide variety of measures. As for the quality of local bus services, "Putting Passengers First" will enable it to get better. In the meantime, it is down to bus operators and local authorities to work closely together.

David Hamilton: As my hon. Friend moves towards 2008 and offers a free bus service throughout England for people who are retired, will she have discussions with those in Wales and Scotland to ensure a transport service that allows free travel throughout the United Kingdom?

Gillian Merron: The point is well made. The Concessionary Bus Travel Bill includes the power to allow, via regulations, for mutual recognition of concessionary bus passes across the UK.

Philip Hollobone: What extra help will the Minister be giving to areas such as Kettering borough, which will see the number of houses increase by a third in the next 14 years? What extra help can the Minister provide to increase bus services in areas such as Kettering?

Gillian Merron: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the provisions in "Putting Passengers First", which give local authorities a far greater say and a greater ability to work closely with local operators to get the right schemes. We are looking for local solutions to local needs. Of course, innovative funding such as the transport innovation fund is also available for congestion-beating plans.

Linda Riordan: Although I welcome much in "Putting Passengers First", does the Minister plan to use those ideas as a stepping stone to a fully regulated system that really would put passengers first?

Gillian Merron: No, Mr. Speaker.

Kevan Jones: May I say to my hon. Friend the Minister, echoing my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Riordan), that the relationship at the moment is wrong? The power is with the monopoly supplier, certainly in my county of Durham, and more power needs to be given to the local authorities. What is happening in Durham is an absolute disgrace. Go North East, formerly Go-Ahead Northern, is stripping out routes and concentrating on the profitable routes in anticipation of powers coming forward.

Gillian Merron: I understand that the situation that my hon. Friend describes is the case in certain places up and down the country. That is why we have talked to all the key people involved and we have received such a good response from all the main stakeholders, who are keen to put passengers first and achieve the right bus services. I emphasise that in the meantime, before the legislation comes in, I am aware that already bus operators, local communities and local authorities are coming together to serve people better.

Railways

Hugh Bayley: What rights GNER employees will have to employment with the successful applicant for the new east coast main line rail franchise.

Tom Harris: As with all franchising competitions, employees are protected under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981.

Hugh Bayley: The re-franchising process creates uncertainty for railway employees and, indeed, for the travelling public, who have been used to a high quality service from Great North Eastern Railway on the east coast main line and do not know what the future will hold. Will my hon. Friend do everything he can to bring the uncertainty to an end as quickly as possible? Is he able to tell us when the end will be and the new franchisee will be announced?

Tom Harris: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his persistent campaigning on behalf of GNER employees in his constituency. I know that he takes a great interest in the matter. I can reassure him about the time scale; the Department for Transport expects to announce the winning bidder this summer, with the franchisee taking over before the end of the year.

Stewart Jackson: The Minister knows how important the upgrade of the east coast main line is to the regeneration of urban centres in the east of England, whether in York or my area—Peterborough. Will he update the House on the meeting about the east coast main line upgrade held yesterday between his officials and Network Rail and tell us whether any progress has been made on that important issue?

Tom Harris: I was not present at the meeting as I had other ministerial engagements yesterday, but if the hon. Gentleman writes to me I shall be more than happy to update him.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: One way in which employees of any of the railway franchises could be protected would be to establish one franchise that was not owned by a company and could be used as a benchmark against which all other efforts could be judged. Will the Minister seriously consider whether that can be done, as at present taxpayers have no guarantee that what they are being offered by a muddled franchise system is good value or even workable?

Tom Harris: I listen closely when my hon. Friend speaks on these matters, since she knows a great deal about the rail industry. However, the European Foundation for Quality Management system, which is used to assess all franchise bids, is a robust measure and I am absolutely confident that continuing to use it will ensure that we obtain the best possible deal for the taxpayer in terms both of value for money and, particularly, of reliability.

Chris Grayling: Has the Minister budgeted for a reduction in the premium paid by the new franchisee?

Tom Harris: I am happy to repeat what I told the hon. Gentleman when we discussed the matter at the Dispatch Box in December. The Department for Transport does not specify levels of premium from bidders for new franchises; it is entirely up to the franchisee or potential bidders to decide how much of a premium they may want to pay.

Chris Grayling: The Minister did not answer my question. I asked him about the Department's budgeting. Several of the other new franchises have budgeted on the basis that there will be a shift from subsidy in the current franchise period to a quite substantial premium to the Government in the next franchise period. Has the Minister made contingency plans for the reduction in revenue that could result from both the situation at GNER and similar situations arising for some of the other franchises that may have over-bid?

Tom Harris: The hon. Gentleman should understand that I have no intention of trying to speculate about the levels of premium or subsidy that future bidders may propose. The price of any new franchise is an important consideration, as it should be—we have a responsibility to the taxpayer to get the best deal we can—but deliverability, not price, remains our primary consideration.

Jim Sheridan: On behalf of my constituents who are employed by GNER, I thank the Minister for that response. Will similar consideration be given to workers throughout the transport industry, such as those currently facing an uncertain future with British Airways?

Mr. Speaker: Order. The question is out of order.

Anne McIntosh: As the Minister is aware, York is an important railway town and GNER has brought huge numbers of jobs to the city and surrounding villages in the Vale of York and elsewhere; but the collapse in the franchise arrangements, as other Members have pointed out, has huge ramifications for the whole franchising process. Is there no end to the taxpayer's largesse? Will other companies be bailed out if their franchise arrangements fail?

Tom Harris: I think that, with respect, the hon. Lady is getting the wrong end of the stick. The franchise was taken away from GNER specifically because we refused to renegotiate it, which was exactly the right decision for the Government to take. If we sent out a message that these franchises could be renegotiated, it would simply encourage any bidders to bid well above what they could afford, knowing that the Government would then come in and bail them out. The Government have not renegotiated this contract: we took away the franchise because GNER was unable to meet its franchise commitments.

Tim Yeo: What recent assessment his Department has made of the quality of rail services between Manningtree and London.

Tom Harris: The industry-standard public performance measure, or PPM, is a measure of performance of train operating companies rather than individual services. The current PPM of the train operating company "one" expressed as a moving annual average is 87.1 per cent., which represents an improvement of 0.6 per cent. in the last year.

Tim Yeo: Passengers using Manningtree have suffered unreliable and overcrowded trains for the last three years. Insult was added to injury with the recent hefty increases in both fares and car parking charges. Does the Minister believe that adding £100 a month to the cost of commuting from Suffolk to London on a sub-standard service is a good way to encourage people to use the train?

Tom Harris: I am aware of some of the performance issues that "one" has suffered in recent months. The hon. Gentleman will be glad to know that with car parking at Manningtree being oversubscribed, "one" is currently working on proposals to deck over the car park and make it a double-deck one. As far as rail fares are concerned, increases in regulated fares are restricted to inflation plus 1 per cent., while with non-regulated fares, it is up to the train operating companies to decide by how much they need to go up. If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that more fares should be regulated, he will also have to suggest where that money is going to come from. If it is not to come from the rail payer, the only other source is the taxpayer.

Richard Bacon: My constituents also use this line and they were shocked by the death at Swainsthorpe last Thursday—the third death there in 16 months. I have written to the Secretary of State about that. Will the Minister tell us whether there will be a full review of automatic half-barrier crossings, which are thought to be a risk factor in the accidents that have occurred?

Tom Harris: The Department for Transport will, of course, act on any recommendations that we receive from Her Majesty's rail inspectorate.

Local Transport Funding

Robert Wilson: How his Department decides whether to fund local transport projects; and if he will make a statement.

Gillian Merron: As part of the local transport plan process, which includes assessment by the Department, funding for smaller schemes is generally decided by local authorities, which receive block grant funding to enable them to identify and fund local priorities. For larger schemes, decisions are made on the advice from the particular region and met by either regional funding allocation or, potentially, the transport innovation fund.

Robert Wilson: As the Minister knows, Reading is one of the local authorities currently piloting road charging. Can she confirm press reports that the Department for Transport will fund local transport schemes only for those authorities that actively pursue road pricing? Has that been the case in Reading, and will it be the case in future for other local authorities?

Gillian Merron: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the guidance that was issued on applications for funding. I can also confirm that the reports that he has read are not true.

Graham Stringer: Virtually all the discretionary expenditure for local transport plans is within the transport innovation fund. I understand from talking to leaders of local authorities in Greater Manchester that the Secretary of State has made it quite clear that, to access those funds, the people of Greater Manchester will have to pay a special and extra tax for using the roads. That unpleasant news has been communicated well, but the other side of the package has not been so well communicated. Will the Minister clarify whether, if that tax were to be imposed on people in Manchester, the Government would guarantee to fund the full metrolink extension and give back control of local buses and trains to local authorities?

Gillian Merron: That is quite a shopping list and I would expect no less from my hon. Friend. I refer him to the guidance that is issued in respect of the transport innovation fund. I can confirm to the House that the fund is available for innovative solutions to tackling congestion. It is not the case that the Secretary of State is imposing solutions to local problems; the Secretary of State has set out a requirement that local solutions are found to meet local needs. That is the right way forward.

Daniel Rogerson: The dualling programme for the section of the A30 in mid-Cornwall is nearing completion. However, further east, from Temple to Higher Carblake, there is a section of single-carriageway road on which we might see further delays, particularly in peak summer months. The regional assembly has dumped that from the programme, although it has been in there for many years. Local people will be lobbying at the regional level, but will the Minister consent to meet some of my constituents so that they can press upon her the problems with that piece of road?

Gillian Merron: Of course I am happy to agree to such a meeting.

Dennis Skinner: Now for the good news. Does my hon. Friend agree that, with infrastructure improvements, come jobs? There is no better example than the 10-year campaign that I have waged for junction 29A, which will lead straight into Markham pit yard, in order to provide up to 8,000 jobs. It will transform the unemployment situation in the whole of north Derbyshire, affecting six constituencies. I therefore congratulate my hon. Friend on providing me with a £14.5 million cheque. The diggers have started and the job is now moving towards completion.

Gillian Merron: Skinner's junction is well known in the House. I am grateful for my hon. Friend's thanks. Clearly, Skinner's junction is all about the very best of this Labour Government.

Nicholas Winterton: Does the Minister accept that some local authorities—I refer to Cheshire and Macclesfield in particular—are somewhat concerned that the funding of local projects is not as transparent as the Government may seek to make out? There appears to be prejudice and, I am sorry to say this, because I am not generally very political— [ Interruption. ] There is prejudice against Conservative authorities. Will the Minister indicate whether there are any grounds for my concern, which is widely shared in both the borough of Macclesfield and the county of Cheshire?

Gillian Merron: I do not accept that allegation. If the hon. Gentleman has evidence, I will gladly look into it.

Railways

Gordon Prentice: How many sets of points of the same type as those at Grayrigg are to be found on the railway network.

Douglas Alexander: This is an operational matter for Network Rail, which advises that there are more than 4,000 sets of similar points on the national network. The Office of Rail Regulation, as safety regulator for the railway, is satisfied with the actions taken by Network Rail, following the derailment, to ensure that the railway is safe to operate. In particular, the ORR supports Network Rail's precautionary visual sample inspection of similar points across the network.

Gordon Prentice: Trains are running across the network, so there is no design flaw in the points themselves, but I was reflecting on the signalling. At the Carlisle control centre the signal was at green. Why did that happen? Is any work being done to make sure that signalling systems are more sensitive to the condition of the track?

Douglas Alexander: I am sure that most Members of the House would recognise that it would not be appropriate for me to discuss the subject of an ongoing investigation by the rail accident investigation branch.

James Clappison: In light of the Grayrigg derailment, and the apparent similarities between that and the Potters Bar derailment, is there not a need for more than a precautionary inspection of 900 points? Is there not a need for a thorough inspection of the maintenance system and the inspection system for points, and indeed of the whole safety culture surrounding the points, so as to avoid this type of derailment?

Douglas Alexander: The hon. Gentleman is getting rather ahead of himself. First, we have to take forward the continuing work of the rail accident investigation branch in clarifying exactly what happened at Grayrigg and the reasons for that particular tragedy. I understand that that will take some months. I am sure that we should allow the rail accident investigation branch the opportunity to do that work. In addition, however, it obviously continues to be an option for the ORR, the safety regulator, to set down conditions for Network Rail. My understanding is that, post the tragedy at Grayrigg, the ORR is satisfied with the steps that Network Rail has taken.

Eric Martlew: Perhaps the Secretary of State will confirm that the west coast main line will open again on 12 March.
	Following the Potters Bar derailment, when there was a failure involving the points, the Rail Safety and Standards Board made 16 recommendations specifically on rail maintenance. Have those recommendations been implemented?

Douglas Alexander: I will certainly be happy to write to my hon. Friend about the RSSB recommendations. I assure the House that work is under way to make sure that the west coast main line opens as quickly as possible.

West Coast Main Line

Katy Clark: How much his Department has spent on the west coast main line upgrade.

Tom Harris: Expenditure on the west coast main line upgrade to date is £7.225 billion out of a total expected cost of £8.125 billion.

Katy Clark: I appreciate that a huge amount has been spent on upgrading the west coast main line. However, following the recent derailment, our thoughts are with the family of the bereaved and the survivors. I appreciate that the investigation is continuing, but if it becomes clear that further resources need to be invested in health and safety, does my hon. Friend agree that that funding must be provided?

Tom Harris: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her comments. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already made clear the Government's willingness to act in light of recommendations received from the rail accident investigation branch. My hon. Friend will also know that investment is running at a historical high, with £88 million being invested in the railway network every week by the Government.

CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS

The Minister of State was asked—

Claims Handlers

John Mann: When she expects regulation of claims handlers to commence.

Bridget Prentice: All authorised businesses will be required to comply with the regulatory rules by 6 April 2007. The regulatory regime will come fully into force in late April 2007, when we plan to commence the statutory prohibition on providing regulated claims management services without authorisation.

John Mann: Two claims handlers are responding to my constituents' consumer complaints by sending them threatening solicitors' letters. What will be the process through which my constituents can object to the inclusion of those claims handlers on the official register?

Bridget Prentice: When the regulator assesses applications, he will be able to take into account the views of anyone who has concerns about a particular claims handler. Comprehensive and detailed questions will be asked of all people who apply for authorisation. I recommend that my hon. Friend and his constituents make the regulator aware of the concerns that he has raised on several occasions.

Mark Todd: The answer that the Minister has just given will be of some relief to people who have been approached by these claims handlers, who have not merely handled their claims inadequately and charged them money when they should not have done, but transferred their claims by selling them on, often to poorly qualified solicitors who have done an extraordinarily poor job of handling claims for mining injuries. I hope that this process will be able to put that matter to bed. Does the Minister share my hope?

Bridget Prentice: I certainly do share my hon. Friend's hope. There have been recent incidents of claims handlers touting for business with a variety of people, including physiotherapists, and we are ensuring that we get the message across that claims handlers should be very careful before acting in such a way. I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will ensure that their constituents are aware that the Compensation Act 2006 will be coming into force in a month. I should also say that people will get their claims dealt with more quickly and successfully if they proceed with them themselves, rather than by going through a middle agent.

Kevan Jones: What discussions has my hon. Friend had with the regulator about the inclusion on the register of organisations such as the Union of Democratic Mineworkers and the Durham area National Union of Mineworkers? They are acting wholly as claims handlers and are still, in some cases, refusing to identify who has had money deducted and to repay that money. Will she speak to the regulator as a matter of urgency and ensure that he looks into those organisations in detail?

Bridget Prentice: I am aware that the organisations to which my hon. Friend refers have both applied for authorisation, but although I can confirm that, I obviously cannot give any information on the progress of the applications that the regulator is assessing. However, if they were authorised, they would have to be listed in the same way as other organisations, and they would have to comply with all the regulations set down in the Act.

Advice Services (London)

Andrew Dismore: What changes she expects there to be to legal aid support for advice services in London; and if she will make a statement.

Vera Baird: From October 2007, the Legal Services Commission will pay advice services in London fixed fees for various types of standard social welfare work, with payment by the hour retained only for exceptional cases. That approach will help to ensure the optimal delivery of effective advice to clients in greatest need.

Andrew Dismore: May I raise just one of the concerns of Barnet law service in my constituency? It works as a second-tier advice agency, primarily on cases that need specialist caseworking and representation referred to it by bodies such as citizens advice bureaux. For that reason, it does not have smaller and easier cases to balance against the more complicated ones. How will it fare under the Minister's cuts? Surely it is a higher spending priority than judges' lodgings, on which her Department wastes £5 million a year.

Vera Baird: As it happens, I have the figures for Barnet law service in front of me. It is the only not-for-profit provider in my hon. Friend's constituency that the Legal Services Commission pays. The figures show clearly that if the fixed fee scheme had come into play last year, Barnet law service would have made 8.4 per cent. more money, with its current case load. Of course, we want to encourage efficient suppliers such as Barnet law service, so we are open to suggestions that such suppliers might start doing more work.

Alan Beith: When the Lord Chancellor was asked about the subject in the public evidence session held by the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs, he said that he thought that any reduction in the number of suppliers of legal advice in London, which is relatively well provided for in that respect, might be compensated for by an increase in supply in areas where there is a shortage of providers of legal advice, such as the north-east. Does the Minister share his confidence that that will happen?

Vera Baird: I do; there is a considerable over-supply of some, but not all, kinds of legal advice in London, and it is rational that the cash now going into that over-supply should be moved to areas where there is under-supply, and where we have been criticised for allowing advice deserts to continue. Certainly, that is the drive, and the economics suggest that that is what will happen.

Karen Buck: One of the many concerns expressed by legal and advice agencies in my constituency relates to the abolition of the level 1, or very basic, advice service. How many Londoners who had access to level 1 advice last year will in future be turned away from that simple signposting, and what does the Minister expect will happen to them?

Vera Baird: I cannot give my hon. Friend the exact numbers now, but I will write to her, if she will find that information of assistance. Level 1 is general advice, which is gate-keeping and triaging advice. It is not legal advice, and the Legal Services Commission pays only for legal advice. Our target and our achievements in that direction, which are increasing, are to merge our funding with that from local authorities, so that the local authorities' funding can be used for simpler, straightforward advice, while our resources are reserved for organisations such as the one that my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) talked about.

Henry Bellingham: Is the Minister aware that a recent survey revealed that 95 per cent. of civil legal aid practitioners believe that the changes will make their work non-viable? That puts a huge amount of extra pressure on community law firms and advice centres in London that may well be unable to cope. Shelter, Mind and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children all predict that the legal aid system will soon reach breaking point. Whom should the public trust: world-class charities that help the vulnerable day in and day out, or Ministers?

Vera Baird: Interestingly, I had e-mail correspondence with the chief executive of Shelter, who is confidently moving his team of legal advisers into that future framework of supply. I do not doubt that in past months there has been a great deal of anxiety and concern about the size of the change necessary to take on the challenges of that Carter-type proposal, but people have grasped the fact that it is profitable to make those transitions, which will enable them to deliver a good service. I am holding meetings practically daily with suppliers, who are coming round to the notion that they should look to the future. It is time the Tory spokesmen did the same.

Legal Aid

David Taylor: When the Government plan to bring forward their proposals for reform of legal aid procurement.

Vera Baird: "Legal Aid Reform: the Way Ahead", published on 28 November 2006, set out our plans for reforming the procurement of legal aid services by moving towards a market-based system. The first phase of the reforms will come into effect next month. More will follow in October and afterwards, subject to the outcome of current consultations on some of the detail.

David Taylor: Solicitors practising in the unglamorous, indifferently paid world of legal aid criminal defence generally do so because they care about giving disadvantaged people access to justice, which is surely a cornerstone of any decent society. Does the Minister think that turning legal aid procurement into a single-buyer market with fixed fees and competitive tendering risks forcing many law firms out of such work, creating legal aid deserts in parts of the country, thus denying vulnerable clients, often with mental health or social problems, any hope of effective representation?

Vera Baird: I am sorry that my hon. Friend regards legal aid criminal work as unglamorous; I will try harder. I have spent my life in such practice, and I can assure him that it is very satisfying and rewarding, even though we cannot rise to the levels of pulchritude that he expects. The hallmark of a decent society is good legal advice and representation for the community. That is far more important than particular lawyers' practices. The proposals will improve a legal aid system that is already the best in the world. Fixed fees for standard cases will ensure that the best, most efficient quality-controlled firms bid to undertake more and more cases. They will provide top-quality advice to more and more people, thus ensuring that high standards are spread more effectively and are available to my hon. Friend's constituents.

Peter Bone: Constituents at my advice surgeries consistently tell me that there is little or no legal aid provision in Wellingborough and the surrounding area. Have the Government carried out a countrywide assessment to determine where legal aid is, and is not, available?

Vera Baird: Yes. I will ensure that the hon. Gentleman receives the details of what we resource in Wellingborough. I accept that about two years ago, there were significant gaps in provision, particularly of social welfare law services across the country, but since then we have paid 20 per cent. more into those services to try to fill the gap, and we have advised 30 per cent. more people. In fact, we are on an upward trajectory, but I would be pleased to meet the hon. Gentleman if he has specific constituency concerns.

Ian Lucas: When I met Wrexham legal aid practitioners last Friday, criminal legal aid practitioners were concerned about the rates under the new fixed fees. In particular, there appears to be a disparity between payment in the Wrexham area and in other areas, so can my hon. and learned Friend help by explaining the basis on which those calculations are made? Is it historical or geographical? Can she give us a little more information?

Vera Baird: Yes, I can. The fixed fees proposed for the new police station duty rota areas, which will apply to my hon. Friend's criminal suppliers, are the average fees claimed over the preceding year in those police stations. The purpose of going down to the local level and consulting on each duty rota area is to try to thrash out any problems. For instance, if we have got things slightly wrong in cross-border areas, we need local knowledge to straighten that out.

Keith Vaz: The concern that we have on the Back Benches is that the number of specialist contracts that the Government have issued has declined considerably in the past few years. If my hon. and learned Friend looks at the answer she gave me on 6 February, she will see that in areas such as family law they have gone down from 4,200 to 2,800, so how can she possibly say that a decline in the number of specialist contracts will result in better access to services for our constituents?

Vera Baird: By analogy, when we introduced contracting, the total number of legal aid suppliers declined from around 6,000 to around 3,000, but service quality and coverage of supply increased. Those contract numbers have gone down. Let me repeat what I said to the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone), though: over the same period, the amount of money that we have put into family and civil legal aid has gone up by 20 per cent., and we are serving 30 per cent. more people. That means that we have rightly kept in play the suppliers who do the job well and do it efficiently.

Postal Votes

Philip Davies: What mechanisms are in place to verify the legitimacy of postal votes.

Bridget Prentice: We are introducing a range of new measures at the May 2007 local elections that are designed to strengthen the security of postal voting. They will build on the measures successfully introduced in May 2006, including the introduction of personal identifiers for postal voters, which will help to ensure that postal voting is both safe and secure.

Philip Davies: The Minister knows that I am not a big fan of head of household registration. Does she agree that postal voting for all can lead to head of household voting? There is a concern, especially among certain minority communities, that people are coerced into voting for particular candidates through hierarchical pressures. Will she consider restricting access to postal votes, to make sure that all votes are cast fairly and freely?

Bridget Prentice: The identifiers introduced in the postal voting system this year will show that everyone can vote as they wish. I am interested to hear that the hon. Gentleman is concerned about the way postal votes are handled in a household. I notice that in the 2005 general election, which he won with a majority of 422, 9,392 postal votes were returned. I wonder how many of those he considers were handled purely by the head of household.

Mr. Speaker: I call Mr. Bellingham.  [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman was a little slow; I call Mr. Betts.

Clive Betts: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Does my hon. Friend accept that although the verifiers of signature and date of birth are probably about right as guarantees, there is a concern that many people who genuinely need a postal vote may not fill in the forms that have been provided because it is another form and they do not like bureaucracy, or they simply do not get round to it? Will she therefore commend the electoral registration officer in Sheffield, who has not merely sent out one form, but has sent a second form as a reminder to those who have not returned the first one? Will she encourage all registration officers to do that, and even to go beyond that and send out a third and fourth form, if necessary, to ensure that people who need a postal vote do not lose out?

Bridget Prentice: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that suggestion. It is good to see that electoral registration officers are being proactive in encouraging people not just to register—the register has gone up this year by some 500,000 or thereabouts—but to take part in postal voting, particularly where people were used to being on the postal vote register in the past. We have had to start with a clean new register and I hope other electoral returning officers will follow Sheffield's example.

Henry Bellingham: Given that a staggering one in seven postal votes in last year's local elections in Tower Hamlets may have been fraudulent, does the Minister support Sir Alistair Graham's call for the Government to abandon next May's internet and telephone voting trials? Are not Ministers ignoring one hard truth: once ballot papers are allowed to leave polling stations, the opportunities for fraud multiply and the secrecy of the ballot is compromised? Is it any wonder that the Council of Europe, better known for investigating elections in Belarus and Albania, is threatening to send monitors to the UK?

Bridget Prentice: The hon. Gentleman is usually such a charming man. I can see that he was having difficulty trying to manufacture anger in his question. May I say two things to him? No, I do not agree with Sir Alistair Graham that we should stop doing pilots. The whole point of piloting is to ensure that we get the system right. Secondly, I am disappointed that the Council of Europe motion, concocted mostly by some of the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends, took no account of the action that we had already taken and the strengthening of the security of postal voting that is in place.

Community Courts (Nottingham)

Graham Allen: What progress has been achieved in locating community courts in Nottingham; and if she will make a statement.

Harriet Harman: Community court sittings dealing with cases from the Aspley and St. Ann's areas of Nottingham will commence within a community building when the right building is found.

Graham Allen: I welcome again the Government's community court initiative on reuniting communities and the justice system that is meant to serve them. Will my right hon. and learned Friend meet senior judiciary to clarify a couple of matters: first, communities' involvement in the possible appointment of judges in community courts; and secondly, relaxation of the very stringent accommodation criteria that are necessary for magistrates courts so that they can be located in the neighbourhoods that they are intended to serve?

Harriet Harman: I thank my hon. Friend for his continuing commitment to ensuring that there is effective community justice in his area of Nottingham. It is absolutely right that everybody involved in the justice system has to do things slightly differently if that connection between the community and their local court is to be re-established. That means looking again at the criteria for the kinds of buildings that could be used as courts, and it raises the question of how the local judiciary could be chosen. One of the strongest points in favour of the Liverpool community justice centre was that community representatives from local tenants associations had the opportunity to be part of choosing the judge, David Fletcher, whom they now regard as their judge for their local community.

Inquests

Chris Bryant: What the average (a) waiting time for and (b) duration of an inquest was in the last period for which figures are available.

Harriet Harman: The average time from the date of death to the conclusion of the inquest is estimated to be 23 weeks. That is based on the information returned by coroners for 2005. Information about the duration of inquest hearings is not recorded separately.

Chris Bryant: That is a bit of a shame, because it often takes a very long time for an inquest to be heard. Families who are grieving and want closure on the situation that they have had to face find that very difficult. In places where there are logjams, such as Oxfordshire, would not it make more sense if some cases were not dealt with by the Oxfordshire coroner just because they have come through Brize Norton, but went through the individual areas where people come from?

Harriet Harman: When I said that information is not centrally recorded, I was talking about the duration of each inquest—how long each one takes to hear. We do keep information about the average time that it takes from the death to get to the hearing.
	My hon. Friend makes an important point about needing greater flexibility so that various coroners can help other coroners who have built up a backlog of inquests. That is particularly so in the context of inquests into armed forces deaths that are encountering delays in Oxfordshire. We are trying to sort out the situation as best we can within the current legal framework, which is very rigid and archaic. The coroners reform in our forthcoming Bill will make that much easier to do.

Simon Hughes: Will the Minister give an undertaking that in future there will not have to be a nearly 10-year delay for an inquest as important as that into the death of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, and delays of years for people killed in the service of their country, costing a fortune, as she knows? Can we have a guarantee that there will be a limit to the time that it takes for an inquest to be opened and the answers given?

Harriet Harman: One problem is that each coroner's jurisdiction is entirely self-contained. There are no central performance standards, there is no central monitoring, and there is no chief coroner to provide leadership such as the Lord Chief Justice provides to judges. As a result, while some areas are conducting inquests very promptly, in others there are delays that nobody in this House would regard as acceptable. We will be able to deal with that when we have our legislation on coroners. However, we are not simply waiting until that happens—we are trying to ensure that we get a much better picture of where the delays are and that we work with our colleagues in local government to ensure that there are no such delays. I think that the inquest into the death of Princess Diana was unprecedented; certainly, the length of time taken has been exceptional.

BILL PRESENTED

Retail Packaging Recycling

Andrew Stunell, supported by Chris Huhne, Martin Horwood, David Howarth, Norman Baker, Tom Brake and Mr. Dan Rogerson, presented a Bill to require that certain retailers shall provide free of charge a collection point for any packaging materials sold or supplied by them; and to require them to recycle or safely dispose of such materials: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 15 June, and to be printed. [Bill 71].

Private Parking (Regulation) Bill

David Wright: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make further provision about penalties relating to parking on private land; to make provision about compliance with notices concerning parking for disabled people on private land; and for connected purposes.
	I want to make it clear from the outset that people who provide private parking spaces on their land should be able to protect them. Many businesses are affected by people who park vehicles on their land and create problems. Pubs, shops and businesses in town centres want to ensure that their customers can park, and we need to make sure that they have the right to do that. It is important for businesses to protect their parking spaces for their customers and employees.
	Many organisations use private security companies to enforce parking regulations on their land. The Private Security Industry Act 2001 provides for the regulation of such matters. It also provides for the security industry authority to license organisations that undertake immobilising and clamping activity in private car parks.
	In addition to holding a valid security industry authority licence, vehicle immobilisers must observe specific requirements. First, a vehicle must not be clamped, blocked or towed if it displays a valid disabled badge or if it is a marked as an emergency services vehicle that is in use as such. Secondly, any licence holder who collects a release fee must provide a receipt, which must include: the location of the clamping or towing; the name and signature of the person who clamped the vehicle; the licence number of the organisation that carried out the clamping, and the date on which it happened. The immobiliser must wear a licence. Those who work without a licence commit a criminal offence, which is punishable on conviction by a fine of up to £5,000, six months' imprisonment or both.
	The problem is that there is no clarity about the sort of signage that private clamping companies have to provide on sites before clamping is undertaken. There is no standard process. The fees are also a problem. The legislation simply states that fees should be "reasonable". That causes several difficulties.
	The BBC in the midlands has recently undertaken some work in Birmingham to examine the operation of private clamping in the city. It got a woman driver to park a vehicle on a privately owned space and leave the scene. Almost immediately, the clampers from a private company emerged and began to tow away the vehicle. The woman returned to be told that she had to pay hundreds of pounds in cash to the company to release the vehicle and that she would be escorted to a cash machine to make the payment. When she said that she could not pay, she was left to make her own way home alone late at night. The company's behaviour was clearly unacceptable. However, people will pay almost anything to get their car released.
	My constituent, Paul Watling from Telford, was also caught out on an area of land in Birmingham. He fully acknowledged that he was parking in a private space. However, the signage on the site was poor and he had to pay £350 to get his car released from clamping. He was virtually frogmarched to the cash machine by some fairly aggressive and intimidating clamping agents.
	The Bill proposes that clamping companies must inform the local authority in their area of activity of the scope, style and location of signs to be used on private land. I am trying to drive towards some standardisation of the signage in local authority areas. The Bill also proposes giving the local authority the power to set a range in which penalty fees should be set. Clearly, that may vary between different towns and cities, depending on the market and the scarcity of parking spaces. I believe that the decision should be made locally by the local authority. However, we should consider setting a maximum amount for such fees—£350 in cash is extortionate.
	The second element of the Bill concerns the provision of disabled parking spaces on private land. The Department for Transport provides advice on the provision of spaces for disabled drivers. The Disability Discrimination Act requires service providers to take reasonable steps to ensure that disabled people can enjoy services. Department for Transport leaflet 5/95 suggests:
	"For car parks associated with shopping areas, leisure or recreational facilities, and places open to the general public: A minimum of one space for each employee who is a disabled motorist, plus 6 per cent. of the total capacity for visiting disabled motorists. The numbers of designated spaces may need to be greater at hotels and sports stadia that specialise in accommodating groups of disabled people."
	Most disabled persons' parking bays in off-street car parks, such as supermarket car parks, are not covered by blue badge scheme regulations. Such car parks and parking bays are likely to be privately owned and managed by the individual business: the agreement, and any cost to use them, will be between the owner and the motorist or customer.
	If a disabled motorist or passenger complains to, for example, a supermarket that a non-disabled motorist has parked in a disabled bay, an employee of the store can ask the driver to move their car but cannot legally insist on it. In some instances, the owners of private car parks are reluctant to take action against people, because they think that it is bad for business. In my view, not providing bays for people with disabilities and mobility problems is bad for business. One of the problems is that spaces tend to be close to the store and people feel that they can park briefly in one of those spaces when they use a cash machine or pick up friends or family who have been shopping. Such behaviour is not acceptable.
	A number of surveys have been conducted on the use and abuse of disabled parking bays in recent years. In 2005, a survey carried out by Baywatch found that one in five bays were being abused on supermarket sites. The Bill would require all owners of private car parks with disabled parking bays to have a clear written strategy on enforcement, which is available to the public on request. It would also require owners to submit an annual report on their enforcement activity to the local authority and the Disability Rights Commission or its successor bodies.
	I have considered proposals to extend the blue badge scheme on to private land and, for example, supermarket car parks. My main concern about an extension of that scheme is that many authorities already find it difficult to enforce the provision on public car parks. The Bill does not therefore include such proposals. Supermarkets and other car park owners who provide disabled places are, however, drinking in the last chance saloon: they need to act more effectively, or we will have to bring in more draconian legislation.
	In closing, may I thank Douglas Campbell, chairman of Mobilise, and John Pring of Disability Now for their help on this issue? I also thank the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), whose support for the Bill has been especially helpful. I am conscious that the House is fairly full this afternoon. To ensure that the next speaker can make his points, perhaps Members will leave the Chamber quietly once they have listened to the presentation of my Bill.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by David Wright, John Mann, Mr. Iain Wright, Mr. Dai Havard, Chris Mole, Mike Penning, Philip Davies, Mr. Robert Flello, Martin Salter, Helen Jones and Ann Coffey.

Private Parking (regulation)

David Wright accordingly presented a Bill to make further provision about penalties relating to parking on private land; to make provision about compliance with notices concerning parking for disabled people on private land; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 15 June, and to be printed [Bill 72].

Speaker's Statement

Mr. Speaker: I have a statement to make relating to the main business.
	In the debate on House of Lords reform, I have selected amendment (c) to the motion on hereditary places.
	For the benefit of the House, I will set out the procedure to be followed at the end of the debate tomorrow. Under the Order of the House of 27 February, at 5.30 pm tomorrow I shall put the Question on the first motion, on retention of a bicameral Parliament. Thereafter, the Questions will be put successively on each of the remaining motions until the last. On that motion, on hereditary places, as I have selected the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, I shall put the Question on that amendment first. I shall then put the Question on the main Question in the usual way.
	I also inform the House that I have decided to apply a 10-minute time limit on Back-Bench speeches on both days of the debate. When the opening speeches have been made, in the exceptional circumstances of this debate I am prepared to give an indication to those wishing to speak of whether they will be called today or tomorrow. I do not expect any Member to approach the Chair before the opening speeches have concluded: Members will have to listen to all three.  [Interruption.] I must always give Members fair warning when it comes to these matters.

House of Lords Reform

Jack Straw: I beg to move,
	That this House supports the principle of a bicameral Parliament.

Mr. Speaker: With this we may take the following motions:  Options for Reform of Composition: No.1—
	That this House is of the opinion that a reformed House of Lords should be fully appointed.
	 Options for Reform of Composition: No.2—
	That this House is of the opinion that a reformed House of Lords should be composed of 20 per cent. elected members and 80 per cent. appointed members.
	 Options for Reform of Composition: No.3—
	That this House is of the opinion that a reformed House of Lords should be composed of 40 per cent. elected members and 60 per cent. appointed members.
	 Options for Reform of Composition: No.4—
	That this House is of the opinion that a reformed House of Lords should be composed of 50 per cent. elected members and 50 per cent. appointed members.
	 Options for Reform of Composition: No.5—
	That this House is of the opinion that a reformed House of Lords should be composed of 60 per cent. elected members and 40 per cent. appointed members.
	 Options for Reform of Composition: No.6—
	That this House is of the opinion that a reformed House of Lords should be composed of 80 per cent. elected members and 20 per cent. appointed members.
	 Options for Reform of Composition: No.7—
	That this House is of the opinion that a reformed House of Lords should be fully elected.
	 Hereditary Places—
	That this House is of the opinion that the remaining retained places for peers whose membership is based on the hereditary principle should be removed.
	Amendment (c) thereto: in line 2, at end add
	'once elected members have taken their places in a reformed House of Lords.''

Jack Straw: It is 98 years sincere a wholly hereditary House of Lords plunged the nation into one of its worst ever constitutional crises as it vetoed the right of a democratically elected Government to set a Budget. It took two general elections in a single year and the Parliament Act 1911 to resolve the crisis.
	In 1999 the House of Lords underwent the most significant reform since the 1911 Act, with the removal of the vast majority of hereditary peers and the establishment of a second Chamber in which no single party should command an overall majority. Those changes have produced a more independent and active House of Lords. It has been a major advance, but as a reform it is far from complete.
	Those who believe that the United Kingdom should have a unicameral Parliament will have the opportunity to express that view in the votes tomorrow night. It is not a view that I support. Strong government must be balanced by a strong Parliament, and that means, among many other things, an effective, revising second Chamber, subordinate to but complementary to the House of Commons.
	Almost all countries the size of ours or larger have bicameral Parliaments, because of the weight and complexity of the business before them. This House already sits for longer and for more days than most comparable legislatures. If it were serious about doing the work of two Houses combined, it would mean—besides many other things—much shorter recesses, no light Thursdays and many fewer constituency Fridays. I suggest to Members on both sides of the House that that is a sure-fire recipe for detaching Members of Parliament from their voters.
	My preference, and that of the main Opposition parties, is for a reformed House of Lords containing a substantial proportion of elected Members alongside appointed Members with special expertise and experience. I believe that by such means we can create a more representative, effective and legitimate second Chamber without challenging the primacy of this House.
	Despite the 1999 reforms and other changes to the House of Lords since 1911, such as the introduction of women Members and life peers, this House has so far found it impossible to reach a substantive conclusion on the most appropriate membership and framework for a reformed second Chamber. There are those who say, even now, that what we need to do is pause and reflect "maturely" on the next step. I rather think that 98 years is long enough for such reflection.
	We have not been short of debate over the past 98 years, just results. All-party talks in the late 1940s fell away. All-party talks in the late 1960s were thwarted first by a Lords decision to block sanctions against what was then Southern Rhodesia and is now Zimbabwe, and following that by an extraordinary alliance—a kind of Faustian pact—between the late Enoch Powell and Michael Foot. More recently, after a royal commission with a distinguished membership had presented a thorough and wide-ranging report in 2000, and after a White Paper in 2001 and a comprehensive inquiry by the Public Administration Committee and a Joint Committee of the Commons and Lords in 2002, the House in early February 2003 managed to vote down every possibility for reform, from doing nothing to having an all-elected House and every alternative in between. It was not a good day for the reputation of this House or of Parliament.

John Redwood: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain how, under his proposals, a serving Prime Minister could be completely detached from the selection procedure in his party for peers, and might it not cause tensions if there were disagreement on the general attitude?

Jack Straw: I shall shortly come on to our proposals for composition and the role of the statutory appointments commission, as well as the method of election.

Chris Mullin: On legitimacy, did my right hon. Friend read the remarks made by Lord Kingsland on 7 November 2006? In his concluding comments in a debate on the Police and Justice Bill, which had ping-ponged a couple of times between the Lords and Commons, he said:
	"We have concluded that, in our judgment, it would be wrong for us as an unelected House, having faced two repudiations from the elected House, to send this back one more time...If we were an elected House, I am sure that our decision would be different."—[ Official Report, House of Lords, 7 November 2006; Vol. 686, c. 654.]
	Is that not the nub of the problem? An elected House or a part-elected House would be used to undermine the legitimacy of this House.

Jack Straw: My hon. Friend is correct that that is a key part of the central argument. If he will allow me, I shall develop my point and in doing so I hope to give him an answer that will provide some satisfaction.

John Baron: Given that the Government's model still leaves enormous powers of patronage with party managers, would not the second Chamber better represent society if an independent commission were instructed to fill the Lords with representatives of organisations that best reflect society—in other words, if we were to create a second Chamber of the country's talents in which individuals could represent such organisations?

Jack Straw: I do not for a second accept the first part of what the hon. Gentleman says. There are many possible formulae, including the model of the Irish Senate, which he has, in effect, just described. I do not accept that that is the best way forward.

Alan Beith: Returning to the remarks of the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), what would be the point of a revising Chamber that could carry out only those revisions that this House wanted it to carry out?

Jack Straw: It is right to ask that, and in my judgment it is perfectly possible to put in place safeguards to protect the primacy of this House while changing the Lords' composition. This point is central to the issue under discussion, and I will develop it shortly.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Jack Straw: If Members will forgive me, I shall give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) and then make some progress.

Frank Field: My right hon. Friend has already moved on to the composition of the House. Should we not be spending more time on what the functions of the other Chamber should be, and then consider whether the current composition matches what we want from those functions—and if it does not then consider what changes we require?

Jack Straw: I have moved on to the composition of the House because I took interventions. The composition and the functions run together, and some Members of this House and the other place take the view that if the other place is simply a revising Chamber it follows as clearly as night follows day that it must be an appointed Chamber. That view is not shared across the world in almost any other country, and it is not a view that I accept. I shall now make progress.
	When my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister asked me to take on the issue of Lords reform 10 months ago, he encouraged me to— [Interruption.] No, the phrase was "hospital pass" and not "legacy", actually. My right hon. Friend encouraged me to search for a consensus with the other parties and to make proposals. This two-day debate and tomorrow's votes are the culmination of the first stage of that process.
	Four years ago, when the House last debated this issue, I voted for an all-appointed House and against the alternatives. I did so for several reasons, one of which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin). I feared the impact of introducing an elected element into the other place. I had concerns that that could impinge on the primacy of this House, and that it could create a new breed of politician, rivalling the role of Members of this House both here and in their constituencies. I am well aware, of course, that some Members still have these concerns.
	However, I have to tell the House that, having thought deeply about this subject, I am now convinced that my fears of 2003 were misplaced, and that there is a very solid case for a part-elected, part-appointed House.

Bernard Jenkin: Will the Leader of the House give way?

Jack Straw: No, if the hon. Gentleman will excuse me.
	Tomorrow night, I shall vote for a 50 per cent. elected, 50 per cent. appointed hybrid House—my personal first preference, and where I think consensus might lie— and then for a 60 per cent. and 80 per cent. elected House, as well. I shall vote against the other alternatives.
	As I have just mentioned, the principal reason I previously supported a wholly appointed House was that I considered that the introduction of any elected element into the Lords could, by virtue of that fact, inevitably challenge the primacy of this House, which is fundamental to our democracy. However, as I read the royal commission report, the associated research evidence and much other material, I was presented with facts about other countries' experience that simply did not support my view of an automatic link between an elected element in the Lords and an erosion of the primacy of this place. The evidence shows instead that a country can have a powerful elected second Chamber—the United States, for example—or a weak elected second Chamber, four examples being Japan, Spain, Poland and the Czech Republic. A nation may have an appointed second Chamber with relatively limited powers, or an appointed second Chamber with relatively substantial powers. There are, in truth, no iron rules linking composition and power, except the rule that allows self-confident democracies to set their own rules—their constitutions—and to change them when they judge it right to do so.
	Having considered the evidence, I was struck by two other things. First, after extensive deliberation the royal commission, the Public Administration Committee and the unofficial but authoritative Breaking the Deadlock group each came down in favour of a hybrid House of part-elected, part-appointed membership—albeit of different proportions. Each of these all-party committees had thought long and hard about how a hybrid second Chamber could be established in such a way as to avoid competition with this House. They made recommendations to that end, which have greatly informed the conclusions of the Government and of the cross-party group.

David Clelland: If we had a hybrid House—the worst of all possible options—would my right hon. Friend care to speculate which group of Members would have the greater legitimacy: the elected or the appointed?

Jack Straw: I will deal with that point. I know that my hon. Friend has read the royal commission report and the other two reports, so he will recognise that a great deal of effort and work was put into ensuring that, by the means of election and by the fact that such individuals would sit for a single term, without the prospect of re-election for a long term, their relationship with those who had elected them and with their peers—literally—would be a different one. The truth is that there are partly appointed, partly elected Chambers elsewhere in the world, and the evidence suggests that whether or not they work satisfactorily depends on the other ground rules that are established alongside them. In the end, it will be for this House, because it does have primacy, to decide those ground rules. I do not think that we have anything to fear in that regard.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Jack Straw: I shall give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Jane Kennedy) and then make further progress.

Jane Kennedy: I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. He has looked at the evidence from around the world and spoke of the United States as a having a strong second House. The relationship between a Member of Congress and their constituents is inevitably influenced by the fact that they are elected from a constituency of more than 500,000 electors. We have a very much closer and more precious relationship with our constituents, in my opinion. Could we not look closer to home and learn from the experience of Scotland? Having extra Members of Parliament in Scotland has created a degree of uncertainty and confusion that a lot of Labour Members certainly would not welcome here.

Jack Straw: I agree that we should learn from that experience and we have done so, because there are no proposals in those three reports or in the White Paper that have any parallel with the overlaying representation in the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies, with people elected through different methods to representation in the same Assembly.

David Curry: rose—

Patrick Cormack: Will the Leader of the House give way on that point?

Jack Straw: I wish to make some progress, but I will give way to the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen shortly, if time allows. I have given way eight times already.
	When the Government brought forth their previous White Paper on Lords reform in 2001, they proposed a limited elected element of just 20 per cent. But, as the latest White Paper delicately puts it, that 2001 proposal
	"failed to command widespread support".
	In fact, 89 per cent. of the more than 900 respondents to the 2001 White Paper wanted a House that was 50 per cent. or more elected. That level of public rejection of the principle of an all-appointed or mainly appointed House in favour of a significantly or wholly elected House is a consistent feature of recent tests of public opinion. A thorough opinion survey last month for the Hansard Society, which itself has no axe to grind on this issue, showed that just 6 per cent. favoured an all-appointed House, and 82 per cent. a wholly or partly elected House.
	In the end, on this issue as on any other, this House has to make its own decisions, and answer for them. But I think there is one reason above all why the instinct of the public is so clearly against a wholly appointed second Chamber, and that is because they doubt the legitimacy of a key institution of a democratic Parliament if they are denied any say through the ballot box over who should sit in that second Chamber.

Patrick Cormack: The Leader of the House knows full well that that Hansard Society survey also showed that more than 50 per cent. of the respondents had very little idea of what the House of Lords did. That is an important point. What would his reaction be if, in a keenly contested vote in the other place, the day was carried by the non-elected?

Jack Straw: My view is that we can establish the rules about the nature of the operation of the other place. Every other Parliament with a second chamber has done that, and all parties are agreed—as Wakeham recommended—that regardless of any change in composition, the primacy of this House should be maintained. I shall come on to that point. I also point out that it is dangerous to suggest that we should dismiss the public's view on the grounds of ignorance. That was the view that was taken by our predecessors in opposing any extension of the franchise in 1832. Leaving that aside, the hon. Gentleman quoted the Hansard poll at me, but it also shows that of those who have a grasp of the issues—the poll's words, not mine—many more people support the proposal that the Government make today.

David Curry: If this House votes for a House of Lords that is substantially elected and that takes the form of legislation, at some stage the British electorate will be invited to vote for a third of a proportion of the House of Lords. What does the Leader of the House think will be at stake in those elections to motivate the electorate to turn out and vote?

Jack Straw: What I think will be at stake in those elections is representation of part of the second legislative Chamber. Everybody in this House agrees that the other place performs a very important function, regardless of its composition, and I think that those elections will generate considerable interest.

Tom Levitt: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that under any of the models that include elected members for the House of Lords, he is talking about a single election for a 15-year period? While that would give the legitimacy of being elected, how on earth would it ensure the accountability of those members?

Jack Straw: I do confirm that. My hon. Friend is right to say that it would give legitimacy to their position in the other place, and change the relationship between them and their "constituencies". As my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree said, that is the whole point. Those who know the US system will be aware that the different relationship between Congressmen and their constituents is due not to the size of the constituency but to the intensity of elections. The fact that they have elections to the House of Representatives every two years means that Congressmen never stop electioneering and are more attached to their constituents than any of us are.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Jack Straw: I need to make progress, as many other hon. Members want to get in.
	It is the issue of legitimacy that was the second factor behind my change of mind. Society has changed dramatically in recent decades, and Parliament must keep up with those changes. I simply do not believe that in this less deferential, more assertive age the public will tolerate a wholly appointed chamber for much longer. The choice in my judgement is stark: it is change or wither away.

Malcolm Rifkind: Will the Leader of the House give way?

Kenneth Clarke: Will the Leader of the House give way?

Jack Straw: I shall give way first to the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), and then to the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke).

Malcolm Rifkind: If the Leader of the House believes that appointed Members are illegitimate, why is he recommending that they should continue to represent half of the upper House?

Jack Straw: I do not agree for a second that they are illegitimate, and I have never suggested that or used that word.

Kenneth Clarke: Does the Leader of the House agree that the House of Lords has perfectly good powers at present? Its Members can revise and delay legislation, but the primacy of this House means that they cannot veto it. Earlier, the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) quoted Lord Kingsland. Does not that quotation show that, even when dealing with very important questions of human liberty, Members of the House of Lords refrain from exercising their full power of veto because they are not elected and so cannot challenge the more legitimate lower House? Does not that quotation confirm in full the point that a reformed upper House would have more courage and confidence to use its powers?

Jack Straw: It might, and I shall develop the point in a moment. Such a House might indeed be more assertive, and the House of Lords has already become more active since the changes of 1999. I have gone on record as saying that I do not mind that at all: I think it is a good thing, as long as it does not challenge the primacy of this House. We can protect that primacy by convention and by the use of law.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Jack Straw: I am going to make some more progress.
	Two parallel processes have been undertaken over the past year towards establishing a consensus on this issue. One has been the Joint Committee on Conventions under the Chairmanship of my noble Friend Lord Cunningham of Felling, and the other has been the cross-party group on Lords reform that I have chaired. Good progress has been made in both groups.
	The Cunningham Committee reported last November. Its conclusions are an invaluable template, setting out very clearly its current understanding of the powers of this place that established its primacy, and the conventions that ensure that that primacy is delivered. The Committee's conclusions were unanimous, and were subsequently endorsed by both the Houses without Division.
	In shorthand, the primacy of this House depends on three key elements: first, the exclusive right of this House to determine who forms a Government; secondly, this House's exclusive right to raise taxation and to allocate public spending; thirdly, the right of this House to the final—and pretty prompt—say over any legislation that is the subject of dispute between the two Houses.
	The Cunningham Committee made it clear that its conclusions—not on those powers, which were a given, but on the conventions underpinning them—related to the Lords as it is currently constituted. However, the House will be reassured that all members of the cross-party group that I chaired were agreed on the fundamental principle of the primacy of the Commons, and that any reformed Lords should be a complement to this House, and not a rival to it. That echoes similar key conclusions of the royal commission, the Public Administration Select Committee, and the Breaking the Deadlock reports.
	The cross-party working group met eight times between July 2006 and January this year. I hope very much that, if we reach clear conclusions tomorrow, it can be reconstituted.

Andrew George: Will the Leader of the House give way?

Theresa May: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Jack Straw: I give way first to the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George), and then to the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May).

Andrew George: Paragraph 4.11 of the White Paper states that
	"current conventions are the right ones for a reformed House to deal with, certainly early in its life".
	If the upper Chamber is primarily or significantly elected, how "early in its life" does the Leader of the House expect there to be pressure for a change in those conventions? Would not it be more appropriate to ensure that they are enshrined in law before he rushes headlong into the process of determining how the upper House should be composed?

Jack Straw: The hon. Gentleman may be right about that. I said at paragraph 22 of the Government's response to the Cunningham 2 report "Conventions of the UK Parliament":
	"The extent to which there needs to be additional steps to secure that"—
	in other words, these conventions—
	"would need to be addressed if there was any suggestion that the major parties did not support this approach in the context of a new House."
	But these things are perfectly possible. The crucial thing is that no one is arguing about the current practice of the powers of the two Chambers. There may be a debate about whether the conventions which in part underpin those powers—they are also in part underpinned by the resolutions of this House and by the Parliament Acts—are sufficient. I am very happy that we should have that debate. Indeed, I hope that we can because I hope that we can reach a result tomorrow night for the first time in 98 years.

Theresa May: In a recent interview in  The House Magazine the right hon. Gentleman said that, assuming that there was a clear outcome in the votes tomorrow night, we would inevitably return to the issue of the powers of a reformed second Chamber. As far as I am aware, he has not made that so explicit before. Is it his intention after tomorrow night, if there is a clear outcome, to set up cross-party talks about the powers of the second Chamber?

Jack Straw: That was a shorthand way of saying what we said in respect of the Cunningham 2 report—that we would need to deal with this issue. I am happy to say today—indeed, it was my very next sentence—that I hope that, if we reach clear conclusions tomorrow, the cross-party group can be reconstituted. I want to try to work by consensus here, as the right hon. Lady knows that we have been seeking to do, and we have been pretty successful over the past 10 months.

Ian Lucas: Is not the difficulty that our constitutional settlement is of course unwritten and my right hon. Friend supposes that the position at the end of the process that we are going through will be fixed? The lesson from devolution in the United Kingdom is that there is immediate pressure from the institution to change the constitutional arrangements again. If there is an elected element, that pressure will be immediate and constant, and we will be coming back every year to have this debate.

Jack Straw: I agree with part of what my hon. Friend says. I do not agree with the implication that we have something to fear from a partly elected second Chamber. Other countries manage very well with having one House which has primacy and a partially or wholly elected second Chamber. I said in my evidence to the Cunningham Committee a few months ago that if we have a partly or wholly elected second Chamber—I do not support a wholly elected second Chamber—the appetite to challenge the power of this place will increase. We have to anticipate that when we are drawing up the framework in which a partly elected House should operate, but we have the ultimate say because of the Parliament Acts.
	We are not in the position of some other first Chambers in other countries; we can decide. My view is that we ought to decide. It comes back to the answer that I gave to the hon. Member for St. Ives. No one is arguing; everyone is agreed that the current powers of this place in relation to the powers of the Lords or any second Chamber should remain the same. The only issue is the means by which they are delivered, because in part they are delivered by conventions. If we believe that those conventions are likely to be too weak, we can supplement them by resolutions and underpin them by statute.

Nicholas Winterton: As a member of the Joint Committee on Conventions, I think that it is important that the House be aware that the Joint Committee stated clearly that, if the composition of the Lords were changed, the Committee or another joint committee would have to review the conventions, because the conventions apply to the present House of Lords and the composition of the present House of Lords. It is quite wrong that this House should assume that that Committee, which sat at great length and considered the matter in great depth, had any other view than that the current conventions covered the current House of Lords.

Jack Straw: I fully accept what the hon. Gentleman says, but he will also recognise that at paragraph 61, which discusses how or whether the conventions could operate in a changed House, his Committee said that the matter was "outside the remit" of the Committee. The predecessor Cunningham Committee said that, even with elections, it envisaged
	"a continuation of the present role of the House of Lords, and of the existing conventions governing its relations with the House of Commons."
	If we make a decision for a partly elected element, there will of course be cross-party talks, because all three main parties will have agreed on the direction in which we should move and, to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), we will be able to do a better job than was done on devolution, which happened much more rapidly, not in 98 years—or even in 98 months. As someone who took part, in opposition and then in government, in the discussions on devolution, I realise that speed was necessary because of the pent-up feeling for devolution, but if we had had more time, we could have done a better job.

George Howarth: In view of my right hon. Friend's response to the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton), does he still stand by paragraph 21 of the Government's response to the Joint Committee?

Jack Straw: Yes.

Julian Lewis: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Jack Straw: I need to make progress, because I have already given way about a dozen times.
	There was agreement among all in the group in favour of a hybrid House, with a significant elected element, although the precise level was left to free votes. There was agreement within the cross-party group that a reformed House should consist of at least 20 per cent. non party-political Members, and that no political party should be able to hold a majority of the whole House or of the party political Members of it.

Pete Wishart: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

Jack Straw: I will give way in a second. I know that the hon. Gentleman wants to ask me about the bishops— [ Interruption ]—or at least that is my guess. Whatever it is, I am happy to take his question, but perhaps he will let me catch my breath before I take the next intervention.
	There was agreement, too, about the need to ensure that membership of the reformed House reflected the gender and racial diversity of the United Kingdom, and the range of religious opinion. All agreed that the special arrangements for membership of the House by a limited number of hereditary peers should come to an end. The group agreed that a long transition, with new Members phased in, would be essential to the success of any reform, and that Members should serve a lengthy, single term of office. Restricting the period of office to one term with no prospect of re-election was a key royal commission recommendation to ensure that elected Members of the second Chamber played a different role from that of MPs, and to prevent them from becoming rivals competing for popular support.

Pete Wishart: I am sorry to disappoint the right hon. Gentleman, but my question is not about bishops. I want to take him back a few sentences in his speech. In this round of House of Lords reform, is not the elephant in the room cash for peerages and the public's great concern that the House of Commons can put people into the other legislature on ability to pay? What recommendations on party political appointments will the right hon. Gentleman make to ensure that the upper House is not full of cronies and funders?

Jack Straw: The hon. Gentleman has a particular view on that matter, although I do not think the point was a particularly worthy one, but there is an issue— [ Interruption. ] There is an issue and I shall deal with it in a second.
	There was also agreement on many other issues.

William Cash: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Jack Straw: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to make progress?
	There was agreement on issues such as breaking the link between the peerage and a seat in Parliament, disqualification and resignation, and having a quarantine period to restrict former members of the upper Chamber standing as Members of Parliament.
	To answer the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), a central recommendation to which all are agreed is that there should be a statutory Appointments Commission. The current commission, with Lord Stevenson of Coddenham and his colleagues, has done an excellent job; but its remit is limited. In our view, its independence should be guaranteed by statute, and it should have the duty to assess the merits as well as the probity of nominees who are members of political parties, as it does for those who are of no party allegiance.

Anne Begg: I ask my question from a genuine desire to know the answer. As someone who would like to abolish the House of Lords—although I realise that the first motion may pass—I am concerned that if I vote for a wholly elected House I will tie myself to accepting a particular form of election. Can my right hon. Friend clarify that point, and confirm that whatever the arguments or discussions about the composition of the House, the form of election is still to be decided and will be fully discussed and debated in this place?

Jack Straw: Yes, I can, and I will spell out in more detail for my hon. Friend where we are on the method of election.

William Cash: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Jack Straw: No, I want to make some progress, if I may.
	The current House of Lords is justifiably commended for the distinction of some of its Members, but there is sometimes an implication that distinction and the holding of a party card are incompatible. That is palpably untrue. I favour a hybrid House partly because I want to see those without party affiliation continue to make an important contribution to the House of Lords, but also because I want to see in the other place some of those expert and experienced in their field who have a party affiliation but whose profession or career make it difficult for them to take part in the electoral process. I am satisfied that with a statutory appointments commission in place, that could be achieved without charges of cronyism.

Robert Wareing: rose—

William Cash: rose—

Jack Straw: I am going to make some more progress.
	An additional reason why my preference is for a 50 per cent. elected House is that it will ensure the widest diversity. With list systems, it is possible, for example, to require that half those elected are women, but it is virtually impossible to make similar provision for ethnic and other minority representation. In practice, for a long time, fair representation of minorities in the second Chamber could be achieved only by appointments.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Jack Straw: I want to deal with the issue of election.
	There was no agreement in the cross-party group about the method of election. The Conservatives favoured large, first-past-the-post constituencies on the old European election model and the Liberal Democrats favoured multi-member single transferable vote constituencies. The Government said that we favoured
	"a partially open regional list system".
	That system was favoured by a majority of the Wakeham royal commission.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Jack Straw: I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford).

Clive Efford: I wonder how the public will exert influence—in the interests of open government and democracy—over how the selection process will operate with the party list system.

Jack Straw: I ask my hon. Friend to hear me out. The same issue applies when it comes to whether the public had a choice over how he was selected to stand for the Labour party or how Tory or Liberal Democrat Members were selected.

Robert Wareing: rose—

Jack Straw: I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing), who is straining at the leash.

Robert Wareing: I thank my right hon. Friend. I want to explain what occurs to me when he refers to the appointment of experts. One expert could be an Army general, but what does he know about the health service or the education system? Are these appointed experts going to be confined to giving their opinion only on subjects about which they are expert and are they going to be allowed to vote only on those subjects?

William Cash: rose—

Jack Straw: I will give way to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), as long as he does not ask me about the European Union. What my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby said is an argument for an all-elected Chamber, which is not an argument that I favour, because I want a mixed Chamber.

William Cash: In the White Paper, the first-past-the-post system is dismissed on the grounds that the arguments in favour of it are relevant only to the Chamber in Parliament that delivers the "Government of the day". What does the right hon. Gentleman mean by that? Surely he recognises that the element of appointment by the party leadership, which is inherent in the partly open list system that he proposes, would automatically give an enormous amount of power to those who run the parties in question.

Jack Straw: I certainly do not accept that. Let me spell out that our proposal is not for the current system in use for the European parliamentary elections. In that closed list system, in practice, voters have to vote for all members of a party's list if they vote for one. Under the partly or semi-open list system, that is not the case. Voters may, if they wish, vote for a list or they may allocate their vote to a specific individual candidate. The result is that voters can influence which candidates are elected as well as which party. In other words, they can "break the list".
	To those people, such as the hon. Gentleman, who claim that this system is no better than appointment by party leaders, I say that there is a world of difference. There is as much voter discretion under this system as under the first-past-the-post system, where in each constituency it is the party that selects the candidate, not the voter. The semi-open list system is our current preference, but if the House can come to a conclusion on composition, I am certainly ready and willing to consider alternatives to it.
	The votes tomorrow night are on the resolutions on the Order Paper—no more and no less. The White Paper is there to inform the debate and to provide the context for it. But there is no resolution to seek endorsement of the White Paper, and, in any event, we ultimately will give effect to the wishes of the House by legislation, not by a White Paper.

Bernard Jenkin: rose—

Julian Lewis: Will the Leader of the House give way?

Jack Straw: No, I am coming to the end of my remarks.
	There are two limbs to the case of those who argue against a significant elected element of a reformed Lords. One, which I have already referred to, relates to fears that such a reformed Chamber would challenge the primacy of this place. It need not and it will not. The second is to argue that the current appointed Chamber does such a good job that it would be difficult or impossible to improve it. Let me now deal with that second issue.
	I applaud the work of the Lords in revising legislation, in holding the Government to account and in acting as a forum for distinguished peers, who are expert and experienced in their fields. But that said, I do not believe that the Lords as currently constituted has reached such a state of grace, either in terms of its activity or its membership, that it requires no change. Self-evidently my view is also the view of both main Opposition parties. One of the distinctive and commendable features of this country's constitutional arrangements is that they normally produce strong Governments. But strong government requires a strong Parliament.
	Over the past 30 years, this House and the other place have notably and noticeably improved the way in which the Government are held to account. But there is much more that this House can do to improve its effectiveness without paralysing good governance, and the same is true of the other place. This is not a zero-sum game. There is no fixed quantum of activity of this Parliament such that if the Lords does something, by virtue of that fact that is going to undermine the Commons or to suck power from it. With government as complex as it is today, and the issues of public concern as great, there is quite enough for both Houses to do without one becoming a rival to the other.
	Over the decades since the crisis between the Lords and the Commons 98 years ago, my party has called for a reformed Lords. We did so again at the last election when we said we wanted "a reformed upper chamber" that had to be
	"effective, legitimate and more representative without challenging the primacy of the Commons".
	For the first time that I can recall, both the main Opposition parties are now in a similar position, agreeing the need for a reformed second Chamber and agreeing much, if not all, of the means to achieve that. We can make huge progress tomorrow and move to implement not just one manifesto commitment, but three. Doing so will require all who wish to see progress not to make the best the enemy of the good, and to raise their sights to believe that after a century of argument we have it in our hands to deliver a second Chamber that is more effective, more legitimate and, above all, more representative.

Theresa May: The other place has a long history and a proud record of providing a check on the powers of Government and no Government can be immune to its challenges. For example, in the relatively short lifetime of this Government, the House of Lords has protected ancient liberties, such as the right to trial by jury, and that is how it should be. A second Chamber should have the confidence and the ability to make Governments think again. But the other place does need to change. The political parties' power of patronage, and with it the risk of abuse, must be removed. If we are to strengthen Parliament as a whole, the other place needs greater democratic legitimacy if it is successfully to challenge Government policy.
	When we reform the other place, we must keep what works well, but we must stay mindful that it can still be improved. As we debate this issue, I suggest that hon. Members would do well to remember Edmund Burke's standard of a statesman:
	"A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together".
	Reform to the other place would change how its members are chosen and would set out its role and its powers. It would have consequences that would last beyond our generation. Indeed, it would affect legislation not yet conceived, to address issues that have not yet emerged. It would change the nature of the relationship between the Government and Parliament.

Bernard Jenkin: May I put to my right hon. Friend the point that I wished to make to the Leader of the House? By any standards, this represents a major constitutional change. It is certainly much more significant than deciding, for example, whether to have an elected mayor in Colchester. On that basis, should not there be a referendum on the outcome of the House's deliberations?

Theresa May: As my hon. Friend makes that point, I cannot help but think about what happens in Canada, where the predilection for having constant referendums is such that they are now known as "neverendums". I do not agree with my hon. Friend; it would not be appropriate for this to be the subject of a referendum.
	There are those who argue that strengthening the upper House by increasing its democratic legitimacy would threaten the primacy of this House. I do not accept that argument and I ask hon. Members not to be seduced by it. As the Leader of the House made it clear, one thing on which all who participated in the cross-party talks were agreed was that the primacy of the Commons should remain as the basis of our democracy. However, the primacy of this place comes from its powers, not merely the process by which its membership is chosen. The fear of challenge is a sign of weakness, not strength. We should not fear reform of the Lords. We should welcome it as a means of strengthening Parliament and our democracy.

Brian Binley: If constitutional matters are not matters for referendums, what are?

Theresa May: If my hon. Friend has a predilection for referendums, I am sure that he will be able to find several other issues that should be put to them. However, I do not agree that this issue should be subject to a referendum. The matter should be debated, considered and decided by the House.

David Blunkett: May I take the right hon. Lady back to the point that she made about the convention of the House of Lords, and thus its role and powers, vis-à-vis this House? My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House seems to make the understandable assumption that there is an understanding among the main parties on maintaining the convention. However, I hear in the right hon. Lady's words—I certainly heard this in the words of the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) and I have heard it over and over again from Liberal Democrats during the 20 years in which I have been in the House—that the convention that this House is supreme and cannot eventually be overturned by the House of Lords is actually not accepted. Will she confirm that she believes that the Conservative party supports the conventions that apply at present and that would be presumed to apply to a second Chamber that was elected in part or whole?

Theresa May: I am happy to confirm to the right hon. Gentleman that I was not suggesting what he has inferred from my comments in any way. As far as we are concerned, the primacy of the Commons is the basis of our democracy and that situation should remain. That was the opinion of all three parties involved in the cross-party talks.
	I congratulate the Leader of the House on his work in bringing forward the proposals. They are, after all, the fruit of the years of work by the Government that started back in 1997. At the 1997 general election, the Labour party promised
	"to make the House of Lords more democratic and representative".
	In 2001, it said:
	"We are committed to completing House of Lords reform".
	Indeed, the White Paper before the most recent one was called "The House of Lords: Completing the Reform". As we debate the Leader of the House's proposals, we must judge them by the Labour party's standards and decide whether they would make the other place democratic and representative.
	Although those considerations are a good starting point for judging the Leader of the House's work, I would add further tests for the proposals. Reform should create an upper Chamber that is capable of challenging and revising Government policy, that is democratic and accountable, and that is expert and independent. That was the spirit in which we entered the cross-party talks because, as the Leader of the House said, all three parties are committed to reforming the other place. The open spirit in which the Leader of the House began the process was welcome. As he said, we need consensus to complete reform.

Patrick Cormack: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Theresa May: I will, in just a moment —[ Interruption. ] I was wondering how long it would be. We want to help the Leader of the House to achieve consensus, but if he is to do so, he must listen to our concerns.

Patrick Cormack: I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. On the one hand, she says that she wants a more effective and powerful second Chamber, but on the other, she wants to enshrine the primacy of this Chamber. Is that not an incompatible wish?

Theresa May: No, it is not, and I would say to hon. Members that when we discuss and consider primacy, it is important that we separate the issue of the primacy of the Commons, and the legitimacy of the Lords challenging the Commons, from the issue of the legitimacy of the Lords challenging the Government. I want a stronger Parliament that gives the Lords greater power to challenge the Government. The issue is not the balance of primacy in the Commons and the Lords.

Frank Field: Suppose that the right hon. Lady had her way and the House agreed to change the composition of the Lords in the way that she wishes. Which of the measures taken in the past year does she think that the Lords would have changed against our wishes, and which of those changes does she think would be totally compatible with our being the sovereign body?

Theresa May: I want the House of Lords to achieve greater democratic legitimacy, and I do not intend to go over measures taken in the past year and decide in which cases the Lords, in a different form, might have voted differently. I repeat that we need to strengthen Parliament to ensure that it is better able to hold the Government to account, and to ensure that there are the right checks and balances on the primacy of the Government.

Frank Field: Is it not one of the cardinal principles of our constitution that the Government are responsible to the electorate? They can only be responsible to the electorate through a party system. We have a system in which Members on both sides of the House are elected on different programmes, but if we churned that programme up, and then the House of Lords churned it up, at the end of the Parliament, the Government would have every right to say, "Well, that's the sort of constitution we have." There is no way that we can hold a Government to account via the electorate if we are prepared to allow party election pledges to be overturned, either here or in the other place.

Theresa May: First, as is pointed out to me by colleagues, Governments bring forward many things that are not in their manifestos, and the electorate cannot refer to them when they vote for a particular party. Indeed, we would not expect everything that Governments brought before the House to be put in a manifesto. Few enough people read manifestos as it is, without them making reference to every single thing that the Government want to introduce.

John Redwood: Does my right hon. Friend share any of my distaste for the idea of regional lists, using European boundaries, being used to elect people to a House that is meant to be independent and to exercise independent judgment? How can we believe that the party hacks going through that system will be amenable to taking on an independent role, and how can we avoid cash for elections?

Theresa May: I am happy to say to my right hon. Friend that I will come to the issue of the list system for elections, about which I have real concerns, and to which, in fact, I object. I was interested to hear the Leader of the House's comments today, because it was the Leader of the House who forced us to adopt the closed list system for the European parliamentary elections.

David Howarth: Does the right hon. Lady agree that the mandate idea—the idea that electors read party manifestos, and that is how we get here—is entirely fictional, and that the essence of the supremacy and primacy of this place is its power to make and break Governments? Nobody is challenging primacy in that sense.

Theresa May: I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman's last point. I also agree that the idea that a lot of voters read manifestos is purely fictional, although of course in the case of some parties, their manifestos are pure fiction.

Jim Cunningham: If the right hon. Lady's proposal is accepted and there are direct elections and manifestos, would we retain the Parliament Acts, as there could be a conflict?

Theresa May: There is no suggestion that the Parliament Acts should be changed or removed.

Kenneth Clarke: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that no one is proposing any reform that would allow legislation to reach the statute book unless the Commons has voted for it? The House of Lords can challenge it and send it back to us, but unless the House of Commons approves it it cannot become law. All that the House of Lords can do if we defy it is delay legislation for the period set out in the Parliament Acts. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) suggested that the Lords could change the law on a whim which, as far as I am aware, no one has proposed at all.

Theresa May: My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. It is important that the House of Lords should have the legitimacy to challenge and delay Government legislation as it proceeds through Parliament.

Chris Bryant: rose—

David Blunkett: rose—

Theresa May: I shall make progress before giving way. I have already accepted a number of interventions.
	Turning to the substance of the Government proposals, the White Paper recommends, as has been said, that in the other place 20 per cent. of Members should be appointed by a statutory appointments commission; 30 per cent. should be appointed by political parties; and 50 per cent. elected by a list electoral system, representing, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) said, the European regional constituencies. The Leader of the House likes to present his proposals as a sensible compromise that would strengthen Parliament, but in reality they are a messy compromise that would weaken Parliament. Far from making the Lords more independent, the proposal puts composition in the gift of political parties. Far from strengthening Parliament, it risks the loss of the present benefits of the Lords. Far from removing cronyism, it perpetuates it.
	We want a House of Lords that is elected by the many but, under the proposals, it would be selected by the few. Yes, 50 per cent. of peers would be elected, but the Government propose to use a list system . [ Interruption. ] [Hon. Members: "Oh!"] It is probably a good job that I did not hear the sedentary intervention by the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart).

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I suspect, too, that it is a very good job that I did not quite hear it.

Theresa May: Yes, under the Government's proposals 50 per cent. of the new peers would be elected, but the Government propose that those elections should use a list system. Effectively, therefore, the parties choose who is elected, so peers would owe their place in the Lords to their party bosses. Crucially, it would make it much harder for independent candidates to run for office successfully. We should do all that we can to encourage independent elected Members in the other place, and I doubt that the Leader of the Opposition believes that a list system would make for a truly independent upper Chamber.

Chris Bryant: I sympathise with some of the right hon. Lady's arguments, which is why I would prefer either an 80 per cent. elected upper House or a fully elected second Chamber. May I return to her argument about how important it is that the Lords should be able to challenge the Government? I hope that she wishes to resile from that position a little bit, as it is important for the primacy of the Commons that it is the only House that can hold a vote of no confidence in the Government, and that the second Chamber cannot do so.

Theresa May: I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. A vote of no confidence should be held in the Commons, not the House of Lords, but that does not mean that we should not have a strong House of Lords that can challenge and revise Government legislation as it proceeds through the House.

Simon Hughes: The right hon. Lady knows that in the discussions between the parties there was extensive consensus that it was important not to challenge the primacy of the Commons. Does she agree that if we are to make progress today the central question is whether we should have a substantially elected second Chamber. Once we have decided that, the secondary, albeit important, issue is what the constituency boundaries are, how we choose Members and how long they serve, but unless we overcome the first hurdle, we will not have the chance to have that debate at all.

Theresa May: Obviously, in relation to the motions on which we will vote tomorrow night, the questions that we will be asked are about the nature of the composition of the upper House, but the debate has arisen on the basis of the Government White Paper, which explores other options as well. It sets out a means of election, and I believe it is important that we look at that when we are considering how the House should be composed.

Douglas Hogg: My right hon. Friend has made it plain, and I agree, that this is not a matter for a referendum, but does she agree that it is of such importance that if a Bill is introduced, it should be determined exclusively on the Floor of the House, and not put into a Committee upstairs?

Theresa May: Yes. As my right hon. and learned Friend knows better than I, with his long experience, constitutional Bills are usually taken on the Floor of the House, and I would expect the Government to abide by that normal courtesy to the House.

Mike Hall: rose—

Theresa May: I shall make further progress.
	I understand that some people take the view that the reformed House of Lords should be a pale imitation of the Commons. That is true. Others take the view that it should not be too different from the Commons, because that would lead to questions about which Chamber was the more legitimate. That is also true. We need to find a middle way between those two extremes, but the proposals from the Leader of the House are not a middle way. We must not allow proportional representation to be used, first as a stick for the Lords to beat the Commons, and secondly as a base from which to campaign for PR to be introduced in respect of this House.
	As for the voters, with the Government's list system they would be left with a crude choice between parties, and they would have little or no relationship with their elected representative. In elections to the European Parliament, where a list system is used, nine out of 10 voters have no idea who their MEP is. I would be surprised if even, dare I say it, the political anoraks in the House know who all their MEPs are in their area. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that his list system would not be good for democracy.
	The White Paper also proposes that the election should be held using the large and remote European regional constituencies. We have already established that voters will not be able to identify with their elected representatives, but how many voters would identify themselves as coming from those large regional constituencies? I am from Maidenhead, but there is a world of difference between Maidenhead and Margate. I was born in Eastbourne, but there is a world of difference between Eastbourne and east Berkshire. People feel an affinity to their town, city or county, and whatever any bureaucrat says, there is no entity called the south-east, apart from on the European electoral map. The Government's proposals might be a nod in the direction of democracy, but Labour's version of democracy empowers the political parties, not the people.

Mike Hall: I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way on that point. In her earlier comments, she said that she wanted to see a more independent element among the elected Members of the House of Lords. Is she saying that the Conservative party would not field candidates in those elections?

Theresa May: I have not had that discussion yet with any members of my party, but I do want to see an electoral system that would encourage independent people to stand for the House of Lords and encourage that ethos. One thing that I am certain about is that a party list system will not encourage independent people to stand for the House of Lords.

Julie Kirkbride: I am reflecting on the proposals to allow an elected element into the House of Lords. Given my right hon. Friend's legitimate desire to see more independent people in the House of Lords, does she not think that that might involve the election of the British National party or other parties that this House might consider undesirable elements of the second Chamber?

Theresa May: I ask my hon. Friend to wait a moment. There is indeed an issue about the election of extremist parties to the Lords, or finding extremist parties in the Lords, which I shall shortly come to.
	I shall deal now with the 50 per cent. of peers who would be appointed—30 per cent. by the political parties and 20 per cent. by the statutory appointments commission. Back in 2003, the Prime Minister said that prime ministerial patronage should go. Since then the only thing that has changed is the cash for honours scandal. So why is the Leader of the House proposing that in addition to their control over the election lists, the parties should also appoint 30 per cent. of the new Members of the House?

Jack Straw: Let me be clear about this. As the right hon. Lady knows very well, we are not proposing that the parties should appoint 30 per cent. of the House but that the parties should be able to nominate people. There is a world of difference. Decisions will be made by the statutory appointments commission, which, as I spelled out in my speech, would have the same power in respect of political nominees as of non-political nominees in assessing their merits and their probity, and would have to select from a wider range of nominees than there were places in the Lords.

Theresa May: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, but of course, as he knows, the statutory appointments commission's responsibilities in relation to the politically appointed Members of the House will be to vet those Members on the basis of recommendations by the political parties. We have an independent appointments commission at the moment, but there are several Members whose appointments to the House have not been stopped by that.

Jack Straw: At the moment, the independent Appointments Commission under Lord Stevenson assesses the merits and the probity of candidates who are nominated for non-party representation, but it can only assess the probity of those who are on the party lists. We are proposing something completely different—to remove the Prime Minister's power of patronage, or decision, and that of the other party leaders. In place of that, the Prime Minister of the day and the other party leaders will be able to make nominations to the statutory appointments commission, which will assess the merits of those applications, as well as their probity.

Theresa May: That still leaves 30 per cent. of the upper House being appointed as party political Members based on decisions taken by party political bosses as to which names should be put forward.
	Another aspect is that the 30 per cent. of Members would be distributed according to the parties' respective shares of the vote at the previous general election. I am worried that that would allow extremist parties into the Lords even when they had not won a direct election into the Commons. Advocates of a system of appointment claim that it enhances the expertise of the other place, but does democracy really leave us with less qualified legislatures? If that were so, there would be a case to be made against local elections, elected Governments and even a democratic House of Commons. I am sure that Members of this House do not consider themselves inexpert, so why do some think that elected Members of the other place would be?

Pete Wishart: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Theresa May: In a moment.
	Let us imagine that an appointed Lords would somehow give us a Chamber of enlightened philosopher-kings. Even if that were so, how should one decide which interests and groups should be represented? An expert in one field is not necessarily an expert in another.

Pete Wishart: rose—

Theresa May: I am taking a lot of interventions, but I have said that I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment.
	For example, I doubt that there is anybody more expert in human fertility than Professor Lord Winston, but is he as expert about the other 99.9 per cent. of the other place's business?

Pete Wishart: Does the right hon. Lady agree that there is something very wrong with this idea that we require the great and the good—our betters—to help us to legislate? Is not that a throwback to some pre-democratic age?

Theresa May: The hon. Gentleman was probably longing to make that intervention, but I suggest that he actually listen to what I am saying.
	I have looked into a few other democracies that appoint their upper Chambers. In Slovenia, membership is divided between representatives of local interest groups and non-commercial activities, employers, employees, farmers, tradesmen and craftsmen, and independent professionals. Hon. Members might think that that is a hangover from Slovenia's communist past, but I think that it demonstrates the absurdity of trying to predict and provide experts for a legislature.
	The proposals set out in the White Paper would create an upper Chamber that is insufficiently democratic and insufficiently independent. To be fair to Labour Members, many of them understand that and want a more democratic other place. Some of them are even in the Cabinet. Last time round, in 2003, the Secretaries of State for Transport, for Northern Ireland and for Health voted for a wholly elected upper Chamber, and it has since emerged that the International Development Secretary agrees with them. However, tellingly, last time around, the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Leader of the House disagreed and voted for a wholly appointed House of Lords. According to the former Minister for Europe, the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane), it was an open secret that the Prime Minister had ordered the Whips to mobilise votes to stop any reform that reduced his power of patronage by nominating Lords.
	I suggest that the division in the Cabinet is the genuine reason for the messy compromise that the Leader of the House has presented. Only four years ago, the Prime Minister said:
	"Do we want an elected House, or do we want an appointed House? I personally think that a hybrid between the two is wrong and will not work."—[ Official Report, 29 January 2003; Vol. 398, c. 877.]
	Now the Government make the very proposal that the Prime Minister once described as
	"wrong and will not work."

William Cash: Does my right hon. Friend accept that, in 2005-06, 170 life peers who were non-Law Lords voted in fewer than 10 per cent. of Divisions and that 76 of them did not take part in a single Division?

Theresa May: My hon. Friend provides some telling statistics for the House's benefit.
	The Leader of the House likes to present his proposals as a sensible compromise. He is fond of quoting Voltaire, which he did again today, when he repeatedly says that
	"The best is the enemy of the good."
	However, that is not the point and it presupposes that his proposal is a good one. It is not. It is not a sensible compromise that offers at least some reform. It would weaken the other place and maintain political patronage, masquerading as democratic reform.
	I have a more down-to-earth test for the Leader of the House. Do his reforms pass the Ronseal test? Do they do what it says on the tin? The label might state that the contents are modern and democratic but they are more of the same—more political patronage and more Government dominance over Parliament.
	Tomorrow, we will vote on not only the Government's proposals but a range of options, as we did last time around in 2003.

Kate Hoey: I shall ask the shadow Leader of the House the question that I would have asked the Leader of the House, but he did not give way. We have said much about legitimacy today. Does the right hon. Lady agree that it is disgraceful that a United Kingdom Parliament will hold crucial votes when all Northern Ireland Members of Parliament are involved in elections? That would not happen if elections were taking place in any other part of the United Kingdom. If one vote goes through with a majority that is less than that for which Northern Ireland Members would account, will that be taken on board? What does she feel about that illegitimacy?

Theresa May: I share the hon. Lady's concerns. It is unfortunate that the votes will be held when Northern Ireland Members are involved in the Assembly elections. It would be far preferable for them to be taken when all hon. Members can be present.
	Conservative Members will have a free vote tomorrow. I shall not vote for the Leader of the House's proposed 50:50 split—I want genuine reform in the upper House. I shall vote for 80 per cent. of the Members of the other place to be elected, as I did in 2003. Last time around, we came painfully close to achieving that outcome and I hope that we shall succeed this time. Indeed, last time around, the proposal for a 50:50 split was so unpopular that it was negatived without even being pressed to a vote. I hope that, unlike last time, Labour Whips will not put pressure on Labour Members to support the 50:50 proposal but allow a truly free vote.

John Baron: If my right hon. Friend accepts that the second Chamber cannot challenge the primacy of this Chamber, why are elections important? Surely the emphasis should be on a second Chamber full of experts and talent, not on providing another layer of politicians.

Theresa May: I hoped that I had explained the reason for my belief that we should hold elections for the substantial proportion of Members of the upper Chamber. That would give it greater democratic legitimacy, and it is important that the upper Chamber can challenge and revise Government policy and legislation. The upper House should have the democratic legitimacy that enables it properly to challenge the Government.

David Blunkett: This point is central to our constitution, which, unlike that of France or the United States, embodies the Government or Executive as part of the House. If greater legitimacy in challenging Government involves greater power, and if greater direct democracy through election to the House of Lords so empowers the second Chamber, can the right hon. Lady square the circle with adherence to and advocacy of the primacy of this House?

Theresa May: Indeed, I can— [Interruption.] The primacy of this House does not come simply from the fact that its Members are elected. Therefore, having elections to the second Chamber will not somehow give it equal legitimacy. The primacy of this Chamber comes from its powers to decide whom the Government should be and its powers over financial legislation. Neither the Government's proposals nor mine contain any suggestion that those powers should be changed.

Julian Lewis: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Theresa May: I will do so one final time.

Julian Lewis: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Accepting that this Chamber may have more power than the other Chamber, how would we cope with a situation in which the other Chamber had, for example, 80 per cent. elected Members who had less power than us but had been elected more recently and took a different view, or had been elected under a different system and took a different view? If this Chamber were divided, and that Chamber relatively united, would not that be a recipe for tension that can only weaken the democratic process? Why is it that more than 70 per cent. of people think that the other place is doing a good job, but a rather smaller proportion think that this place is doing a good job?

Theresa May: I have no difficulty with the concept of tension within the democratic process, as it leads to better legislation and the right challenge to Government. However, my hon. Friend also referred to the possibility of a different electoral system for the upper House, which might somehow claim greater electoral legitimacy. I do not agree that proportional representation provides greater legitimacy, but I fear that a PR system in the upper House would lead some in this House to claim that it had greater legitimacy, and lead to pressure for PR in this Chamber, which I would reject.
	To conclude, I want to refer to our penultimate vote tomorrow night, which, as Mr. Speaker has set out, will be on the amendment in my name and that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) and other right hon. and hon. Members in relation to hereditary peers. Let me make it clear that we support the removal of the hereditary peers, but they must be replaced by elected Members. That, after all, is what the Government are honour-bound to deliver. As the former Lord Chancellor said when all but the 92 hereditaries were removed,
	"a compromise negotiated between Privy Councillors on Privy Council terms and binding in honour on all those who have come to give it their assent...the 10 per cent."—
	the 92 remaining hereditary peers—
	"will go only when stage two has taken place. So it is a guarantee that it will take place."—[ Official Report, House of Lords, 30 March 1999; Vol. 599, c. 207.]

John Bercow: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Theresa May: I apologise to my hon. Friend, but I have said that I will not take any more interventions.
	The stage two to which the noble Lord Irvine referred was, of course, democratic reform. Therefore, we will vote tomorrow tonight on an amendment that would hold the Government to their promise, which, I remind the Leader of the House, was binding in honour. If we did not hold the Government to their promise, we would immediately find ourselves with a wholly appointed upper Chamber, the outcome previously favoured by the Leader of the House and the Prime Minister. Given the Chancellor's remarkable record of silence on the issue, for all we know that is what he would like as well.
	A cynic might suggest that with the hereditaries out of the way, the opportunity for democratic reform might not reappear because the Government would have what they want: a wholly appointed Chamber—appointed by the political parties—with no accountability, no independence and no democracy.
	Do the right hon. Gentleman's proposals pass the tests that I set out earlier? Would they produce an upper Chamber capable of challenging and revising Government policy, democratic and accountable, expert and independent? No, they would not. A substantially elected upper Chamber would be more independent of the party machines, would have more legitimacy when challenging Government policy, and would not deter Members with the expertise needed for the revision of legislation. We oppose the Government's proposals because, far from strengthening Parliament, they would weaken it.
	The Leader of the House often says that if the reforms are not accepted, we will not have another opportunity for a generation. That simply is not the case, but even it were, it would not be a reason for supporting bad reforms. I am not opposed to reform, but I am opposed to bad reform.
	Almost a century ago, the Conservatives opposed reform of the other place because they defended the powers of the hereditary Chamber. They were called ditchers and diehards. We oppose these reforms not because we are ditchers and diehards but because we are democrats—and, as democrats, we cannot support proposals that continue the principle of patronage and the emasculation of Parliament.

George Howarth: It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), who made a very good job of trying to describe something that, in the end, does not work. I fear that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, to whom I extend the hand of sympathy, has attempted to square a constitutional circle and retain two Houses at the same time, one partly elected and one composed of appointees for various reasons such as independence, expertise, ecclesiastical position and place in the legal system. In my view, his conclusion that the best solution is hybridity is flawed. It pains me to say that, because I agree with him so often. The problem with hybridity is that it is neither one thing nor the other. That is not the way in which we should look to the future of the country's constitution, or to Parliament's future operation.
	I signed an amendment—on which, apparently, we shall not have an opportunity to vote—supporting the principle of abolition of the House of Lords rather than its continuation in one form or another. I believe that there is a good symbolic argument for abolition, and, if we take the longer view, a good constitutional argument. I shall say more about that shortly; in the meantime, it is fair to say that the House of Commons is not in a fit state for us to abolish the House of Lords without making some reforms of the way in which we operate.
	In the White Paper on House of Lords reform, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House listed seven principles on which a reformed Chamber should be based. I shall concentrate on two of them. The first is the primacy of the House of Commons, and the second is that the House of Lords needs to be more legitimate.
	We have already had a fair amount of discussion of House of Commons primacy through interventions on the opening speeches, but I ask the House to imagine what it would be like if what my right hon. Friend proposes came to pass. We would have 270 elected peers, or whatever title we decided to give them. Presumably they would be elected on some kind of prospectus—dare I call it a manifesto? To an extent, both the right hon. Member for Maidenhead and my right hon. Friend dismissed the idea of a manifesto as an all-encompassing document. However, without a manifesto and without political parties, on what basis would we be asking people to decide who to vote for? What would be the programme that candidates stand for? What would they intend to do, if elected? We need manifestos, principles and policies so that people know exactly what would happen.
	Let us suppose that, quite against the wishes of this House, the people who stand for election to the House of Lords decide to stand on a manifesto, and let us suppose that the House of Lords that is elected—for 15 years in the first instance—is elected on a different manifesto from that on which the majority of the House of Commons has been elected. What will that produce? Will it produce agreement between the two Houses? I think not. What it will produce is an invitation to stasis—an invitation to the two Houses to lock horns and never be able to agree on anything.

Chris Bryant: My right hon. Friend is creating something of an Aunt Sally, because the truth is that nobody is proposing that the entire second Chamber be elected in one fell swoop. There will be a rolling programme of elections every five years. That means that there will not be any one moment when the whole second Chamber is changed and its Members are replaced, so my right hon. Friend's argument falls.

George Howarth: My hon. Friend makes an interesting point and, to be fair to him, he is consistent: he has, I think, consistently taken the position that he would prefer a 100 per cent. elected upper Chamber. However, the point he makes is also to do with legitimacy, which I shall address shortly.
	We could end up with one House elected on one manifesto and another House elected on another, and it is beyond me how anything could get done in those circumstances. That the right hon. Member for Maidenhead and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House think that that is in some way possible does not bode well for future agreement across the House.

Richard Burden: My right hon. Friend seems to be missing the point that one House can have the final say. That is where primacy is derived from. Is he saying that a second Chamber should not have the right to question or revise? If he is saying that, it is suspect from a democratic point of view.

George Howarth: Clearly, the second Chamber must have the right to question and to revise. My second point, which has been the subject of both interventions on me, is to do with legitimacy.
	Anybody who is elected to a legislature—no matter how they are elected, whether on a first-past-the-post basis, a regional list system or an alternative vote system—is bound to claim a level of legitimacy that the House of Lords does not currently have. If they did not claim that, they would not be self-respecting elected politicians. No matter what my hon. Friends the Members for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) and anybody else might think, it is inevitable that they would claim some such legitimacy, and the definition of what constitutes revising legislation or questioning the Government could be stretched almost to infinity in those circumstances. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has, in all good faith and with his customary good humour, tried to do a good job of squaring the circle, but he has failed. The prospectus he offers the House is a flawed one.
	For many centuries—my right hon. Friend talked about the past 98 years, but the period in question is much longer—the House of Lords has been a bastion of privilege. Over the centuries, it has been reviled by ordinary people for the role that it has played in making their lives more difficult by blocking and opposing reform. That there should be a symbolic break with that past is an argument whose time has come.
	I accept that if we abolished the House of Lords tomorrow we would have real difficulties, because this House as it currently operates is not fit for purpose. However, there are many good ideas on how this House could be reformed. We need a breathing space in which it can be reformed, so that, at the end of that process, it operates as a unicameral Chamber. I urge all those who support and believe in that point of view to oppose the bicameral principle, which is the first option that we will vote on tomorrow night, and to vote in favour of removing the remaining hereditary peers. Failing that, there is no other reasonable option for those of us who believe in that point of view other than to support an appointed House. That is how I will vote, and I hope that others will join me in the Lobby for that purpose.

Simon Hughes: The right hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) made a perfectly good theoretical case for a unicameral Parliament, which other countries have, but the Leader of the House made the much better point. Bluntly, in a very busy modern democracy consisting of four countries and much local government, one House of Parliament would not be able to do the job sufficiently. Secondly, the tradition and history of recent years is that we have not done the job well, and we have needed a second Chamber, not to overrule us, but to correct us and make us think again, and to ensure that legislating and holding the Executive to account were done better. It is my honest view that without a second Chamber, Parliament would be held in much lower esteem than even it is now.
	This could be an historic week, and it will be if we do not make the mistake of February 2003—if we seize the moment and decide to complete the key reform that, as we have all been repeating, was set out nearly 100 years ago. We tried in 2003 and nearly succeeded, but did not. My first call is to colleagues in all parts of the House, from all parties and traditions, regardless of their views about electoral systems and the various other differences. If they are believers in progressive politics and they want a well represented, multiracial, multi-faith, pluralist Britain in which people can really express their preferences for parties or individuals, I ask them to give us the opportunity to achieve that by passing these reforms. That is the challenge, and I hope that we do not back away from it at the end of tomorrow's debate for fear of something that certainly will not be worse, and which will in all probability make Parliament much better.

Andrew Tyrie: Was not the mistake of 2003 that a lot of people allowed the best to be the enemy of the good and ended up voting for only one democratic option? Is it not true that the Liberal Democrats are now considering not voting for a 50 per cent. and a 60 per cent. elected Chamber? If so, are they not going to take us straight back into the trap into which we fell in 2003?

Simon Hughes: Let me deal with that point head-on. Our party has had a consistent position on this issue in many of our manifestos, including the last one, the previous one and the one before that. Our position has been that if people read the manifesto, they could vote for us knowing that we would vote for a wholly, substantially or predominately—those are the only three words that were ever used—elected second Chamber. We have had discussions and reached an agreement, and we believe that the only way that we can reflect that in our votes is by voting for an 80 per cent. or 100 per cent. elected second Chamber—a wholly, substantially or predominantly elected second Chamber. Other options, such as a 50:50 Chamber, are clearly not a wholly, substantially or predominantly elected second Chamber. We are therefore going to live up to our manifesto promises; I just hope that the friends of the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie)—who all stood on a manifesto that said that they would support a substantially elected House of Lords—will also honour the commitment that they made to their electorate.

John Redwood: How many letters has the hon. Gentleman had from people saying, "Please vote to have a lot more elected politicians on big salaries"?

Simon Hughes: The answer is that this issue does not, of course, come ahead of health, education and housing. However, we do not necessarily need to have people on huge salaries; indeed, we already pay people in the House of Lords. Even the Leader of the House's proposal would involve far fewer Members in the second Chamber than there are now. That is our proposal too. If the right hon. Gentleman believes, as the Leader of the House does and says, that we need a strong, democratic and legitimate Parliament to hold the Executive, of whatever colour, to account, this is the opportunity to achieve that.

Patrick Cormack: The hon. Gentleman will accept that I was not elected on a manifesto that talked about 80:20, but does he also accept that a significant proportion of his colleagues in the other place— including Lord Steel of Aikwood, who has more parliamentary experience than most people here—are emphatically in favour of an all-appointed House?

Simon Hughes: On all the evidence, there is a small number of my colleagues in the Lords and three of my colleagues in this House who did not last time support the wholly or substantially elected proposal. Yes, one of them is a former leader of the party, who has gone native and forgotten that he was once elected on that position over and over again. As has been said, we do not choose to listen to dinosaur tendencies, be they in the Conservative party, the Labour party or on our own Benches.

Jack Straw: I wish to press the hon. Gentleman on the point that was raised by the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie). Let us put aside the 50 per cent. option. The memory of the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) appears to be failing him about what is in his manifesto. It is entirely silent—according to the copy I have before me—on support for a wholly elected Chamber. Instead, it talks about a "predominantly" elected second Chamber. It would be entirely consistent with that for the hon. Gentleman to accept the advice of the hon. Member for Chichester not to make the best the enemy of the good, and to vote not only for the 80:20 option, but for the 60:40 one as well.

Simon Hughes: I have copies of the right hon. Gentleman's manifesto, the Conservatives' manifesto and ours for the past three general elections. The phrases used in ours are "directly elected", "predominantly elected" and "substantially elected". Our last manifesto talked of a "predominantly elected" second Chamber. We have had a consistent view about what that meant in practice and we have come to a collective decision that we will vote for that. When people see how the votes go tomorrow, they will see that the Liberal Democrats vote for the position on which they stood for election.

Andrew George: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the reasons for the outcome in 2003 was that we had put the cart before the horse? We were asked to consider the composition before we considered matters of convention—before we decided what the second Chamber was for. That should have been settled before we made the decision about its appropriate composition.

Simon Hughes: My hon. Friend knows that I think that he is wrong about that, because in 2003 we argued—as we do now—that there should be no diminution of the powers of the House of Lords. We argued for a strengthening of the powers of both Houses against the Executive—a point also made by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May). We have never dissented from that.
	The good news is that since then the Joint Committee on Conventions, with representation from all three parties and independent Cross Benchers, has confirmed that we want no diminution —[ Interruption. ] No, we would never argue differently, but the Joint Committee confirmed the position, and all parties—including the governing party—hold to that. We come to this debate having firmed up the position that we had four years ago. There is no suggestion that I have heard from any of the representatives of the three major parties, or anyone else, that there should be a reduction in the powers of the second Chamber or of Parliament vis-à-vis the Executive.

George Young: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that in the Liberal vocabulary "predominantly" means 100 per cent., but not 60 per cent.?

Simon Hughes: No, "predominantly" clearly does not mean 100 per cent. It means more than 50 per cent., but not 100 per cent. I have argued that we have been consistent on this issue. The three words that we have used—"substantially", "predominantly" and "wholly"—have meant that our position has always been to prefer 80 per cent. or 100 per cent. Colleagues will vote accordingly. We are voting according to our manifesto, and if colleagues in other parties do not, that is their problem. We are clear that we want to deliver a predominantly elected House of Lords, and we will do so.

Kenneth Clarke: The hon. Gentleman began with an impressive appeal to the reformers in the House. They were a majority in the previous Parliament, but lost because they all voted for one option and against all the others. He appealed to all those who believed in progressive politics to be more flexible and to vote for a wider range of options to make sure that a majority in favour of some composition of elected upper House was secured. However, he went on to say that the Liberal Democrats would not follow that excellent maxim, because they are bound by their manifesto. That means that they will continue their folly of voting only for 80 or 100 per cent. How reasonable is that?

Simon Hughes: We argued for a voting system that would have allowed the House to make a succession of preferential votes. It is not our fault that that system of voting is not available. The House must therefore make a choice. We have made what we want clear, and I hope that progressive colleagues vote for a substantially, or predominantly, elected House of Lords.

Chris Bryant: My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has said that he will not vote only for 50 per cent.—his preferred option—but for 50, 60 and 80 per cent. Therefore, would not it be polite, and nice, of the hon. Gentleman to vote for 60 per cent. as well?

Simon Hughes: The hon. Gentleman knows that we have set a slightly higher threshold than the 50 per cent. option preferred by the Leader of the House. Four years ago, we missed securing an 80 per cent. elected second Chamber by three votes, and we know that others have since moved in that direction. If people vote for what they really believe in, and do not play games, we will be able to deliver that proportion this time.

Martin Linton: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Simon Hughes: No, as I want to make progress.
	We support a bicameral Parliament, and want a predominantly elected House of Lords or second Chamber. We want the hereditaries to go but, as the right hon. Member for Maidenhead indicated, her party and mine want to make sure that we do not get the worst possible option in that regard—that is, abolishing the hereditaries tomorrow and replacing them with more people appointed by the patronage of the Prime Minister rather than with people who have been elected.

John Bercow: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

Simon Hughes: No, as I want to make progress.
	The Leader of the House has made a thoughtful and serious attempt to bring to the House proposals that represent the greatest degree of consensus. I compliment him on that, and am grateful. I pay tribute to him, and to Lord Falconer who preceded him and who shared the task with him. I also pay tribute to those in the Labour party—and the Leader of the House is one—who realise that they must move on from 2003.
	It is good news that the Conservative party has also moved on in recent years, and the right hon. Member for Maidenhead and the new Conservative leader have both been influential in that respect. The progressive forces in the Conservative party have moved the party towards support for a predominantly elected second Chamber— [ Interruption. ] Redoubts of the old positions remain, but that is why there is now the chance of achieving consensus among all three major parties. I hope that we can build on that consensus, and send a clear message to the other end of the building. If we are clear about what we want in terms of the primacy of the Commons, the Lords must understand that it is our view that must prevail.
	The hon. Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland) circulated a letter signed by 20 Labour MPs to all colleagues. It advocated keeping the status quo, more or less, and its first argument was basically, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I accept that the Lords does a good job, but it is mere invention to suggest that it would do a less good job if it were predominantly elected.

Julian Lewis: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

Simon Hughes: No, not yet. There is no reason at all why that should be the case. Indeed, democratic legitimacy will allow the House of Lords to do a better job and—as the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) said—to do so with the authority of people who have been returned to Parliament by electors.
	Of course, those who want a stronger Executive less accountable to the people's representatives do not want that change. Of course, the people who do not want a two-Chamber Parliament do not want that change. But those of us who do want a two-Chamber Parliament that legislates better and holds the Government to account more will see a huge benefit in changing from having hereditary and appointed people running the second Chamber and in the majority to having elected people in the majority.

John Baron: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Simon Hughes: Not for a second.
	I take exactly the phrase that has been put into the debate by the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe. The view on these Benches is that the second Chamber should revise, improve and delay, but not veto. That will remain its position when it is elected.
	I have heard no argument from any quarter of this House or the other that the relationship between the Lords and the Commons should change—that the primacy of the Commons should be changed. We have a settled constitutional position. This Chamber is where Governments gain their vote of confidence, where Governments can be defeated and where Prime Ministers fall. This is where the Prime Minister and Ministers account to Parliament. There has not been any argument that that should change. We do not argue it; no other party argues it. So I hope that people understand that this is not about changing the primacy of this place. This place will remain the primary House of Parliament; the other House will be complementary and will help us to do our job better.
	The last point was picked up in the previous debate. If the other place was elected by thirds, that would also weaken any potential challenge. No one could arrive there saying, "We have a majority, we are elected by the people all over Britain, and we can challenge the Commons." They would come in as a partly returned group, and they would not have the same authority as we have after being elected on the same day from all over the country, on the basis of manifestos, with everyone knowing that from us the Government will be chosen.

Bernard Jenkin: The convention that this House effectively appoints the Prime Minister is only a convention; it is not set down in any statute. It evolved over time and it may evolve in another direction. If the House of Lords used its existing powers to their limit, it could bring this House to a standstill. How can the hon. Gentlemen give any assurance that if it has so-called increased legitimacy caused by the election of Members of the upper House, that is not what it will do?

Simon Hughes: The hon. Gentleman makes two points. The first is that we do not have written down the fact that it is to this House that the Prime Minister has to come to gain a vote of confidence. In our view, we should. That is why some of us have argued for a written constitution for many years. We are moving in that direction by virtue of the fact that we had the Joint Committee on Conventions, which agreed certain things, including the fact that the Parliament Acts could be used, but only to enable the second House to delay things for a year and to act within certain limits. That is now written down. It was agreed. Everybody—the Conservative party, the Labour party, our party and the independents—signed up to that. It has been confirmed by this place. We took note, with approval, of that report just a few weeks ago.

George Howarth: The hon. Gentleman, like me, served on the Joint Committee that looked at the conventions of the UK Parliament. Does he still agree with paragraph 61 of the report, which said that
	"should any firm proposals come forward to change the composition of the House of Lords, the conventions between the Houses would have to be examined again."?

Simon Hughes: The answer is yes, of course, because we all signed up to the report. The right hon. Gentleman also knows, because he was present throughout the sittings of the Committee, that paragraph 12 says:
	"We therefore strongly support the continuation of the existing conventions. When the views of the Houses on composition are made known, we will return to the detailed matter of how these important conventions should be maintained in a new constitutional settlement between the Houses."
	Parliament is an evolving place; it has evolved in the past 10 years. The nature of the Lords has changed. The hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) made the point that Parliament would go on changing. However, there was not a single argument that this House should not be the primary Chamber; that this should not be where Governments are made and broken or that this should not be the place where Ministers come to give account on a day-to-day basis.

George Howarth: I merely made that point because a few moments ago the hon. Gentleman said that these matters were settled.

Simon Hughes: The question of primacy is settled. There was no argument about it in our Committee; not one voice suggested anything different. Electing some people—be it 50, 60 or 80 per cent.—or all to the second Chamber, by thirds, for a single term, will make it an entirely different place from this one. In this place, we have to go back to the electorate for re-election and the Prime Minister and Ministers come here; it is entirely different. The right hon. Gentleman must not fear that an elected second Chamber would change that fundamental position.
	The right hon. Gentleman argued for a unicameral Parliament, but all the things his colleague, the hon. Member for Tyne Bridge, and others argue for in their circular can be achieved under the Liberal Democrat proposals. They argue for primacy of the Commons. We agree. They argue for complementarity of the Lords and the Commons. We agree. They say that no party should have an overall majority. We agree. They want continuity of membership. We agree. They want a non-political element. We are happy to agree—up to 20 per cent. They want a more legitimate and more representative House of Lords. We agree, but it can be achieved only if we vote for a predominantly elected second Chamber.
	I want to follow up some of the points made in the Government's proposals. There is some debate about the size of the Chamber. We say that, to reduce cost, it should have 450 Members; the Government say it should be bigger. We say that people should be elected for a term of 12 years, with a third being elected every four years.
	There are different views about when the elections should be held. They should certainly not be held on the same day as the general election, which would be confusing and would challenge the authority of this place. The European election day would not be a good choice, either; it would be better to hold the election on the day when we elect the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly—as we shall be doing this year—and when local elections are held throughout England. People could vote for the second chamber, their national Parliament and their local government on the same day, but we can debate those points in due course.
	We believe that in future life peers should be able to step down so that transition is easier, but that a Member of the upper House should not be able to resign their seat to stand as a Member of this place, using their membership of the Lords as a platform to build a career here; the careers and the jobs are different. We want good people who are willing to give up 12 or 15 years of their life to scrutinise legislation and hold the Executive to account but who will not serve a second term. That will give them more independence from the Whips than we have in this place. That is a good thing. They will have been elected—as Independent, Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat or Nationalist Members—but they will be freer from the pressures that we face here.
	If we want an end to hereditary Members and if we want people to be drawn from all ages and backgrounds, we can achieve that as well by election as we ever could by appointment.

John Baron: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Simon Hughes: I want to make two more points, and then I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman as he has been so persistent.
	I endorse the strong point that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead made about patronage. The real weakness of the 50 per cent. option, and of the 60 per cent. option—where we share the view of the right hon. Lady—is that if we go down that road we shall fail to deal with one of the issues that is undermining the ethics and reputation of the body politic of our time. This debate is being held against the background of rolling news about cash for peerages. We do not know whether the allegations are true or whether anybody will be found guilty, but we do know that we must put an end to the idea that a person can have a title for life merely because they are a legislator and appointed as the nominee of the Prime Minister or another party leader. Although we said that we would be content for 20 per cent. of the Members of the upper House to be appointed, they must not get in on the say-so of party leaders or the Prime Minister of the day. Whoever they are, whatever their faith—whether they are bishops or leaders of other faiths—they must go through the independent Appointments Commission, which justifies their membership of the House of Lords.

John Baron: Given that we all agree about the primacy of this Chamber, I find it difficult to understand why anybody would advocate elections for the other place. If the House of Lords had been elected during the past year, what Bill does the hon. Gentleman believe would have been changed because of that election?

Simon Hughes: That question was asked earlier— [Interruption.] How do I know? The answer is that people will be free to choose what they do. The whole point is that the Liberal Democrats trust the voters and the people; we believe that democracy comes from individual citizens being allowed to choose. Let me tell the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) not only that he stood on a manifesto in respect of these issues but that this is the 21st century! We are a modern democracy, and in a modern democracy we cannot defend a Parliament in which people sit on the basis of birth or patronage. That is not acceptable. The hon. Gentleman cannot argue as an elected Member of this House that other people who are elected are less likely than him to do a proper job of holding the Government of the day to account. That is simply not a credible, sustainable or intellectually coherent position.

John Bercow: The hon. Gentleman is so passionate about the purity of his principles that I feel obliged to take him back to the subject of the amendment co-signed by the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) and the hon. Members for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) and for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow)—though notably not by him. The amendment says that the hereditary peers should be removed only when the "elected members" have "taken their places". Will the hon. Gentleman clarify whether he is arguing that the hereditaries should be removed when all the elected Members have been elected, or only when some of them have? I confess that I do not find either proposition very attractive, but the long-stop position is completely insupportable.

Simon Hughes: I understand the hon. Gentleman's position. The six names appended to the amendment are only a selection of elite supporters from the hon. Gentleman's party and mine. The Order Paper would not have been long enough to include all the supporters of the amendment. The more serious answer to the hon. Gentleman's question is that there was a debate about the issue in the other place, which was led by Lord Strathclyde. An understanding was reached that abolishing the hereditaries without at the same time effecting democratic renewal was not acceptable to the majority in the House of Lords, which comprises a coalition of independents, bishops and other party member peers.
	We support the amendment as it provides a lock to ensure that Parliament does not find that, having voted for 50 per cent., 60 per cent. or 80 per cent. of elected members, it then votes for a provision that scraps the hereditaries, but results in even more patronage. To answer the question of the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow), I am insistent and clear that the day that sees the first people elected to the second Chamber is the same day that the hereditaries leave. If they then want to stand for election, they can; and if they want to be nominated through the Appointments Commission to come and contribute as great and good people, they can apply. I am clear on that and I hope that it answers the hon. Gentleman's question.
	Other important principles remain about the size of constituencies and the nature of the electoral system. The Liberal Democrats are clear that they want a proportional or representative electoral system—not just for our party, but for all parties, independents and the rest. There is an argument for starting with the European constituency boundaries, as the Leader of the House proposes, but I have to say that we are open to discussing that matter further. My hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) who has worked with me on these issues over recent months is very clear that in his region, the south-west, there is, bluntly, no commonality of interest with Gloucestershire or Scilly—a point also made by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Andrew George). My hon. Friends in the south-east will tell us that someone in Kent does not feel an immediate commonality of interest with someone in Berkshire.
	We are up for discussing the possibility of smaller regions, but we do not want to end up with constituencies that are so small that we do not get representative outcomes, which the right hon. Member for Maidenhead proposed, or where the role of MPs is duplicated. If this place is to be challenged, the boundaries should be similar to those of this place, but we do not want that. We do not want a Cleveland or a Durham or a Southwark constituency. We believe that the constituencies have to be bigger than that. We also believe that the people elected to the other place should not be paid to do constituency case work or housing cases because they should be doing a different job. They should be doing a one-term job of holding the Executive to account and legislating. They are not meant to be second-tier members of the House of Commons representing individual voters and registering their concerns.

Theresa May: The hon. Gentleman referred to my earlier remarks on this issue, so for further clarification, I should say that we believe that we have commonality of purpose in seeking to provide for an electoral area that is large enough not to challenge and compete with Members of this House while at the same time being small enough to be recognisable to the people who vote in the elections. The European parliamentary regions are not readily understood, so we suggested counties and cities because those geographical areas are understood by the electorate.

Simon Hughes: I absolutely understand the good faith of that and I am one of the great defenders of the counties and the cities, and of local identity. The only thing that the right hon. Lady has not yet conceded is that, under the system that she continues to advocate—the most antediluvian of voting systems: the first-past-the-post system—we would get the least representative outcome, in a much bigger area. We will have to discuss that. We may not get a perfect solution. But I share her view that a list system whereby the parties select the names and the voters cannot choose is the worst of all possible worlds. We believe that there ought to be either a system under which people choose the candidates as individuals or a system under which they choose the order of people on the list completely freely. That is our second-best option.

John Thurso: Does my hon. Friend agree—partly on the principle of having different roles for the two Houses and a different approach—that it is also important when considering the composition of the constituencies to bear it in mind that a new second Chamber should reflect the regions more, and be less population based? Being population based is more the role of this House, which has a direct link with its constituents.

Simon Hughes: I am sympathetic to that view. In the second Chamber, the people who come to Parliament could more logically come from Scotland and speak for Scotland, whether it is the highlands, the lowlands or the central belt. Or someone could speak for Wales, whether it is south, mid or north Wales, or for the west country, or for the north-east. That is an entirely reasonable proposition.
	There is lots of agreement among the three major parties. There is agreement about two Chambers and the primacy of the Commons, and about there being no challenge to MPs in their duties and responsibilities, and no weakening of Parliament. I hope that there is lots of consensus that there should be a stronger, more legitimate and more representative Parliament. I hope that we can agree that those are the principal issues that should lead people to vote in favour of radical change tomorrow. The other matters are secondary.
	We will proceed in the same constructive spirit and I hope that, between us, we will get the best possible outcome. I hope that colleagues will be brave and will vote to end hereditary entitlement to be part of the legislature and to end party political patronage, which is tarnishing our British political system as we speak. I hope that colleagues will go back to what they say every time they go to face the voters, which is that they trust the British people. On these Benches, we do trust them, and we will vote accordingly.

Alan Williams: I will be, I hope, commendably brief. I want to address only one real issue. It is right to say that there is unanimity about the primacy of this House in the present context, but anyone who thinks that, if the proposed legislation goes through, that primacy will remain, is living in a dream world. The primacy derives absolutely—not just in part—from the fact that we are the elected Chamber, and because of that the other House observes conventions. It therefore follows—it seems a rather simple issue to me—that if we go down the path of producing what, if this takes place at all, will eventually turn into an entirely elected House of Lords, the concept of primacy will disappear. I think that the Government recognise that, and that that is why they have gone for this rather strange compromise position.
	I have said this before, but I like repeating what I have said before: hybridity is not a solution. It is a holding position and a stalling of the inevitable. It is unsustainable in the long term. Just think of the realities of a political Chamber where the elected Members—whatever percentage there happen to be—time and again find that the unelected Members are swinging the majority away from them. What will happen in such a situation? The more emotive and high-profile the issue, the more likely it will be that the elected Members of the other place, backed by some Members of this House, will demand even more elected Members, and so the process will go on. Once we start down this road, we will eventually arrive at a fully elected House of Lords.

Andrew George: Paragraph 1.7 of the White Paper states that
	"it would ... be up to Parliament ... to alter the proportion of elected members, if that was thought desirable".
	Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that, given the inevitable dynamics involved, if Parliament were ever under pressure to reconsider the proportion of elected Members of the second Chamber, that pressure would be to increase it, rather than reduce it?

Alan Williams: It seems to me that this is quite simple. I have unconventional views about devolution, and I warned that it would be a slippery slope and that the legislation that we passed would not be the end of the story. I feel very much the same about this matter.
	It is inevitable that whatever the proportion at which we start, the House of Lords will eventually become fully elected, which brings us to the constitutional conundrum that was raised earlier. Once the House of Lords is fully elected, what will happen when one party has a majority in this House and another party has a majority in the other House? As politicians, it is ludicrous for us to think that there will not be manifestos for such elections. An election will be a political event, rather than an election to a social club, so there will be manifestos; one House could thus be in political conflict with the other House.
	Such a situation would raise the interesting question of which House, if both were elected, would reflect the view of the electorate. Who would judge which House was prime? One might say that that would be the House with the most recent mandate, but that would not be satisfactory. I suspect that when there is a fully elected House of Lords, there will be a challenge, initially on key issues, to this House.
	The other House has muscle; it just does not use it. This is not a matter of giving it muscle, because all it has to do is to scrap the conventions and use the Parliament Act to gridlock the House of Commons. An Opposition party in the other House could oppose Bill after Bill to the extent allowed by the Parliament Act. If I had been a Member of the other House back in the Thatcher years, I would have done anything in my power to block some of that Government's legislation, and it is unreasonable to think that other politicians will not try to do the same. If we go down such a route, we will, at some time—this will be a long time away, and I will be dead and buried when it happens—be stuck in constitutional deadlock. How would we deal with that? Have the Government given us any indication of their plans for coping with a situation in which the House of Lords adopted a policy of non-co-operation that would leave us absolutely stuck?
	Some hon. Members might say that that is fanciful, but I draw their attention to paragraph 61 of the report that was agreed unanimously by the Joint Committee on Conventions, which states:
	"If the Lords acquired an electoral mandate, then in our view their role as the revising chamber, and their relationship with the Commons, would inevitably be called into question, codified or not."
	That is why I am making my brief speech. If we start down this path, as I am horribly afraid that we might, it will put us in peril. We do not need to strengthen the House of Lords—it does a good job as it is. If we start down this route, we cannot be sure where it will end. However, I do not think it will end without a degree of political chaos.

Kenneth Clarke: The basis of all my strong views on the subject is my belief that we need a stronger Parliament, vis-à-vis the Government, than we have at the moment. We all realise that regardless of the party that is in power, the modern Executive and the modern state have a tendency to get ever more powerful and all embracing. Most of the public sense that our parliamentary institutions are no longer powerful enough to make the Executive as accountable as they should be. We need more transparency, more honesty and more democratic accountability, which is why I want a stronger upper House of Parliament. At the moment, we have a Commons that has lost its powers and an upper House that is something of an historical anachronism, which restrains it in exercising its powers.
	There is nothing wrong with the present powers of the House of Lords and I would prefer to leave them unchanged. I think that we would find that any debate about those powers would lead to a frustrating inability to achieve any consensus on moving in one direction or the other. I would certainly resist any idea of weakening the existing powers of the upper House, so I am glad that the Government have so far been frustrated in their attempts to impose on the upper House the kind of timetabling of legislation that has done much to weaken the legislative process in this House, for example.
	The right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) does not object to those powers either. He said, as others have done, that those powers are quite right, but he expressed a fear that if the upper House were elected, its powers would, in some extraordinary way, get stronger. I fail to see that. At present, the Parliament Acts ensure that it has only a delaying power, rather than any kind of veto. As far as I am aware, the Parliament Acts secure that the Commons has the monopoly on Supply. It should be made absolutely clear that only the Commons decides matters of taxation and public expenditure, and that should not be changed.
	If there are hon. Members who fear that there would be pressure to abandon some of the conventions, I would be content to address that through statute. If, when we have the Government's Bill, someone were to table an amendment to provide that the upper House should not, in any circumstances, be able to pass a vote of censure on the Government, I would support it. There are all kinds of other conventions with which we are familiar, such as the convention that the upper House should in no circumstances refuse to give a Second Reading to a Bill that formed a major part of a manifesto on which a Government were elected. If anyone could produce a satisfactory legal definition of that doctrine, I would support it. However, I do not believe that the Lords, if it becomes more elected, will be able by pressure to move its powers in the way in which the right hon. Gentleman suggests. The next step that we need to get to in the constitution of the United Kingdom is to persuade their lordships to use more effectively the powers that they already have.
	What could their lordships have done over the past two years? Although I do not want to go into the controversial things that bring about party divisions, some of the legislation that has been introduced on criminal justice, anti-terrorism and human rights has, in the opinion of many people, justified the Lords sticking to its guns and, if nothing else, trying to get the Government and this House to think again and again about where we are going. Although Members of the Lords felt strongly, they did not use all their powers to the full because they felt inhibited by the fact that we were elected and they were not and the feeling that that gave us more legitimacy.
	I align myself with all those who say that to get the upper House to behave more confidently and to use its powers, we have to give them more legitimacy, which means making sure that they are wholly or largely democratically elected. My preference, which I have expressed on all kinds of bodies over the past few years, including the first Cunningham Committee, is for 100 per cent. election; that is the logic of my position, and I shall vote for that tomorrow. I should add that I long ago accepted that the chances of such a measure being enacted in 2007 are absolutely nil.
	Reformers of all parties formed a group, which we called Breaking the Deadlock, and we produced the excellent Second Chamber of Parliament Bill of 2005. The group included my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young), the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright), the late Robin Cook and the Liberal MP Paul Tyler, now Lord Tyler. We had to compromise, because no agreement could be reached on the details, even between such stout reformers. We came up with a proposal for a 70 per cent. elected Chamber. I hope that that makes the Liberals feel guilty about continuing to stick rigidly to their position. I hope that by tomorrow they will have decided that it might be worth considering at least the 60 per cent. proposal, so that we do not all defeat each other in our anxiety to ensure the perfect reform of the upper House.

Chris Bryant: I do not want the right hon. and learned Gentleman to get too pious on the subject of the Liberal Democrats, because although I wholeheartedly support his speaking on the subject, as I recall, he did not manage to vote last time.

Kenneth Clarke: Alas, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) and I, both ardent reformers, found that we had other engagements that took us out of the country. The 80 per cent. option was defeated by three votes on the last occasion, so if my right hon. Friend and I been able to break our unbreakable engagements, and if we had been in the House and voted as we should have done, it would have been defeated by only one vote. I assure the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that I will be here tomorrow to do penance for my absence on the last occasion.
	Let me address a key argument that inspires an extraordinary amount of resistance to what I regard as a fairly self-evidently necessary reform. We are in the 21st century, and if any new state proposed a new constitution, and suggested having an upper House that took the same form as ours, it would be regarded as utterly ridiculous. We are talking about legislators. We are all legislators, and we are servants of the people, by whom we are elected. No one should be a legislator because they inherited or bought the post. No one should become a legislator for life as a young man, and never have to account for their actions.
	No one should be a legislator because they are a member of the great and the good, and a leading figure of the establishment, having been appointed by a committee composed of other distinguished members of the establishment. The argument against the 1832 reform of the House of Commons was that the wrong sort of people would be elected, and distinguished experts would no longer find a place. I am glad to say that the wrong sort of people have consistently been elected to the House ever since; that is called parliamentary democracy. We have legitimacy because of our debt to the people and because of what we said when we were elected. That enables us to exercise powers that we could not otherwise use.
	Let me address the question of whether we are somehow weakening the Commons, or aiding the Government by giving them a more powerful House upstairs, while down here, an emasculated Commons is adversely affected by the competition in the Lords. I do not believe that that is the case. As the Leader of the House said, it is not a zero-sum game. The powers of the House of Commons are not dependent on, or made greater or less by, our "sharing" them in some way with the upper House. The issue of the powers of the Commons needs to be addressed, and reform of the House of Lords should not be regarded as the alternative to the necessary reform of this place, which should be made more effective in holding the Government to account in the modern world.

Clive Efford: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Kenneth Clarke: Yes, for the last time.

Clive Efford: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. On his last point, does he think that Members of the House of Commons would be in a better position to vote on the future of the House of Lords if there had been a detailed debate about future reform of the House of Commons and the role of Back Benchers in scrutinising legislation?

Kenneth Clarke: I agree with that, and in subsequent debates on the subject, I hope that we make that point to the Leader of the House. When—or if, on this occasion—we get on with reform of the House of Lords, it will put pressure on the House of Commons to examine its own procedures. We should react to the fears expressed by the right hon. Member for Swansea, West and others by asking ourselves whether the Commons has not allowed itself to be emasculated in recent years. If we envy what we see as a restoration of the House of Lords powers imagined by the creators of the 1911 Act, it should reassure us to think that we will address the issue of our own powers.
	A beneficial effect of reforming the House of Lords should be to greatly increase the pressure on us to not only talk about reform of the House of Commons, but get on with it. If anything happens to confirm the fears of the right hon. Members for Swansea, West, and for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) and others, the answer is obvious: it will be in our own hands to consider how to strengthen the Commons against the Executive, in line, of course, with the fact that the Government have a duty to govern, and must have their business in the end. However, they should be scrutinised and made more accountable than they are under our current processes. That is, I hope, the most likely outcome of our proceedings.
	I concentrated, and suggest to the House that we concentrate, on the particular issues on which we are voting tomorrow. The key questions are whether we should have an elected element, and how big it should be. I will vote for anything more than 50 per cent.—60, 80 or 100 per cent.—and I hope that we settle that big issue in principle. The real devil lies in the detail, and we will find that there is no unanimity, either among reformers or among non-reformers—I will not call them reactionaries—on all the other issues that would be raised in a Bill. That will make the legislative process fascinating.
	I do not like the party list system of electing, and I do not like the elections taking place on the day of the European Parliament elections; that is an ill-chosen time. I still prefer the idea that the Breaking the Deadlock group came up with, which was for a rolling re-election by thirds every 12 years, rather than every 15 years. The period has to be long enough to make sure that those elected are independent, and long enough to prevent them from deciding how to get themselves re-elected for a second term. They should be immune to the Whips, but we have to be careful, because after 12 years, a person's views may be very different from the views that they held in year one, when they were first elected, and too many mavericks could create difficulties. There are many details of that kind to consider.
	I hope that the Government and my party will allow a free vote on all the issues, and I hope that the Liberals will go in for just a little less rigid political discipline on some of them. We will complete the process of reform only if everybody is prepared not to allow the best to become the enemy of the good, to use the now wearied words of Voltaire, which we have all quoted. The whole process is only worth embarking on if we are all prepared to agree that as long as an adequate system of reform is introduced, it is our duty to go ahead and produce an upper House—a senate—more suitable for the politics of the 21st century.

Bill Etherington: It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke). As we are always told, there are strange bedfellows in politics, and like him, I would like a 100 per cent. elected second Chamber. There is a certain irony in the situation that we are discussing. Let me place it on record that I believe that the present incumbents in the House of Lords do an exceptionally good job. They are admired for what they do, and I am reminded of the old adage, "If it's not broken, don't fix it." However, that is not the issue. The issue is that the Labour party said in its manifesto that it would reform the House of Lords, although it did not say how, and that is one of our problems; it has been transfixed to some degree.
	It surprises me how many of us in a House of elected representatives are frightened of an election for the second Chamber. I am well aware that everyone is apprehensive of any change that might alter their circumstances, although it is not immediately apparent how it would alter them. I disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams), who fears that the second Chamber would take precedence over the Commons. That would depend on the second Chamber's initial terms of reference. I am using the term, "second Chamber", not the House of Lords, because if I had my way it would be a second Chamber. We have not heard very much about it, but how on earth do other countries with two elected Chambers manage? They seem to manage as well as Britain. The United States does not have any problems with two separate Houses, even though they have different political balances—in recent years, that has been a significant factor—and we need not fear any encroachments by a second Chamber on our powers in the Commons.
	It is up to us, but whatever happens in the votes tomorrow, a tremendous amount of work will be needed afterwards. It is only the beginning of a very big change—probably the biggest constitutional change in the country for hundreds of years. I am mindful of the fact that this is the eighth year of the 21st century, yet the Lords is based on a feudal system. Like the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe, I am part of a small minority, but that does not matter. What matters is coming to the House to say what we believe; it is for others to come to their own conclusions, or not. I am concerned about the proposal that people should be elected for 15 years. Why can we not have a system in the second Chamber similar to the system of periodic elections to the Commons? Those elections could be held every five years—I am a great believer in fixed terms, but they are not popular with those who are in power. If we wish to try to attract the right people to serve in the second Chamber, offering them a 15-year term is not as satisfactory as offering them a lifetime of service in the second Chamber. In the past, we have not discussed limiting the time that someone spends in the House of Lords—they are there for life. That is wrong, but if we introduce an electoral system, that argument falls by the wayside, because they can be removed by the will of the people.
	The situation is not simple—it is extremely complex, and no one can say that if we go down a particular route success is guaranteed. Whatever we introduce, it will need quite a lot of revision, perhaps over a number of years, before we get it right. It is a tremendously big change. I will not be popular for saying so, but as we are getting rid of the hereditaries in the House of Lords—I assume that we shall do so, and that we will make the upper House a second Chamber—perhaps we should take a look at the monarchy, too. I do not see why the Head of State should have that role just because they belong to a particular family. I would much prefer to have an elected president, because we cannot compartmentalise democracy. We have a democratic House of Commons, but an undemocratic second Chamber and an undemocratic Head of State. We are not a proper democratic republic, and that is not satisfactory. I hope that those things will be addressed in the years ahead.
	I do not have a great deal to say on the issue, as I have made my views known. Anything less than a Chamber that is 100 per cent. elected will be a problem for ever. Things will not settle down. Some people will be elected, and some will benefit from patronage, so I do not know how such a system would work. If we do not have a Chamber that is 100 per cent. elected we would do better to keep a system of appointments. I do not really believe that, but it would be logical to take that step. It is not satisfactory to have a Chamber that is 50 per cent. or 80 per cent. elected. The only satisfactory number is 100 per cent. Much as I like the idea of a second Chamber, if it is not fully elected, I would sooner see it abolished.

John Maples: I hope that the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Bill Etherington) will forgive me if I do not go down the same route as him, as I do not agree with his point about 100 per cent. election. We could have an interesting debate about the future of the monarchy, but that would complicate the already extraordinarily complicated number of options before us.
	I agree, however, with the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams). We ought to bear in mind the fact that the British constitution is an extraordinarily complex organism that has developed over a long period. The notion that we can take one piece—the House of Lords—and reform it significantly without second and third-order effects on the rest of the constitution is a dangerous one to adopt. I should have thought that such effects were obvious from the Government's constitutional reforms in Scotland and Wales, the abolition of the office of the Lord Chancellor, the creation of a supreme court and the Human Rights Act 1998. Individually, each seems to be a good idea, but they have left a trail of toxic waste with which we are grappling and with which we will have to deal in future, as those measures have left behind a number of issues that were not dealt with at the time. If we reform the House of Lords so that it is elected or substantially elected, a trail of toxic waste will come through Central Lobby into the Chamber, and we will have to deal with it for a long time to come. No one, not even someone as wise as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), can predict what the second and third-order effects will be.
	The House of Lords is exactly what we say we want. It is independent; some of its Members have significant expertise; it has limited power; it does not challenge the House of Commons; and all parties are represented, although none of them has a majority. It does almost everything that we want it to do, but it does not satisfy the test—apparently, it must do so—of whether or not it is democratic. We have a solution in search of problem. There is not a problem that has to be solved, but people have provided a solution—the second Chamber is a legislative body, although it does not have very much power, so it ought to be elected—and tried to impose it in circumstances in which it is neither necessary nor appropriate to do so.

Tony Wright: I am interested in what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but he implies that we can have a second Chamber as long as it is not legitimate. One only has to state the argument to know that it is ludicrous.

John Maples: The second Chamber does not have any power. If it had power, of course it should be elected, but all that it can do at the moment is say to the Government, "Think again" and, in extremis—this power is very rarely exercised—make the Government introduce the legislation again in a different Session. I agree with the right hon. Member for Swansea, West that the second Chamber will accrue greater power. Even if the conventions under which it operates are put into statute, there are ways around them, and it could screw up the legislative process by using its existing powers. An elected upper House would, quite properly, seek to appropriate more power, because it will argue that it is more legitimate and more reflective of public opinion. On many occasions, it will have the support of the media, because the majority in the Commons is inevitably whipped by the Government.

David Howarth: rose—

John Maples: I should like to complete my point. The second Chamber will accrue more powers and, at some point, it may challenge the Parliament Acts. Those Acts are not set in stone, and the statute could be changed. The trail of toxic waste may eventually lead to a change in the Parliament Acts. The democratic legitimacy argument is a double-edged sword, so people should be careful about using it. The situation is not static, and once we start to make changes, we do not know where those changes will lead.

Mark Harper: Will my hon. Friend give way?

John Maples: No, I should like to make progress. I have given way once, and I will probably not do so again.
	The proposal that the second Chamber should be is 20, 30, 60 or 80 per cent. elected is nonsense. Either it is elected, or it is not. I would prefer that it remained a 100 per cent. appointed Chamber, but if that is not possible, it should be 100 per cent. elected. We do not want two classes of Members, with the press and commentators calculating whether a measure was passed by Tony and David's cronies, or whether the elected Members were against it. In such a system, some Members would have democratic legitimacy, and some would not. If the failure of the Second Chamber rests on the fact that it does not have democratic legitimacy, how can we make it democratically legitimate by making it 50 or 60 per cent. elected? Either it is wholly elected or not elected at all. What sort of people will run for election?

Richard Bacon: "The wrong sort of people."

John Maples: I was going to say that the sort of people who will run for election to the House of Lords, the Senate or whatever it is called will be people who cannot enter the Commons. I say this with modesty and as much graciousness as I can: the standards of intelligence, talent and ability needed to get into this House are not superhuman or of Olympian proportions. So if the other House consists of people who are not smart enough or good enough to get into this place, what will be up there? Who will want to run for the other House? It will have no power. It will not be a Chamber of talented, independent people holding the Government to account. It will be made up of people who cannot get into this place.
	What we will lose in the process is the independence and experience of people in the Lords. I know that many Members are party politicians, but a defence debate or a foreign affairs debate in the House of Lords is very well informed by people who have been senior diplomats or senior military officers. That will go. Such people will not run for election to some organisation that has no power, and anyway, they probably do not want to run on a party ticket. The only way to get elected—the only way one can get elected to anything in this country, with the very odd exception—is by being a party candidate in an election.
	Once people have been elected to the other House, they will start interfering on our turf as Members of Parliament. They will pick up constituency cases and local issues because they will want to get into the papers, just like we do. People will go to them and ask for their help, and we will have competition, just as I understand our Scottish colleagues do now, in an extremely inconvenient and annoying way. I suppose Members of the other place will want offices, secretaries, researchers and large office buildings with atriums and rented trees in them. The cost will go through the roof, and there is no evidence at all that people want more expensive Government than they have at present.
	I reserve whatever vitriol I can muster in the debate for the ghastly appointments commission. We are all agreed that hereditary peers should go from that place. It is nonsense that because his ancestor fought with the Black Prince at the battle of Crecy, the great-great-great-great-grandson should have powers of legislation, just as much nonsense as if the great-great-grandfather had given some money to Lloyd George, the great-great-grandson should have legislative powers. But if those are not reasons for having legislative powers, why is being appointed by some statutory commission a reason for having legislative power?
	Who will be on the commission? It looks tailor-made for my good friend Sir Hayden Phillips, and a more admirable public servant I cannot envisage. But that Hayden Phillips and a committee of people like him should have the power to decide who should be legislators and who should not, I find nonsense and abhorrent. I would much rather the Prime Minister had that power, because when the Prime Minister exercises the power, we know who has exercised it, the public knows who has exercised it, we know who is responsible for it and we can see it being done openly. If we have a commission, it will sit in private.
	The Appointments Commission sometimes comes up with extremely odd recommendations. On the first lot that it came up with, it said, "We wanted to make sure that all these people felt comfortable in here," because it had appointed a lot of people just like its own members. That is what a statutory commission would do. No—let us have the Prime Minister of the day make appointments. If he wants to appoint 359 cronies or donors or whatever this Prime Minister has done, we know who did it. The electorate can hold him to account for that and so can the press. When my party is in power, as I sincerely hope it will be soon, our leader will be accountable for the exercise of that power. Let us have it out in the open, where we can see it being exercised.
	The problem is that we have set incompatible objectives for the House of Lords. We want it, apparently, to have democratic legitimacy, and to be representative but to have independence and expertise. It requires only a moment's thought to realise that one cannot find all four qualities in an individual, and certainly not in a body of individuals. At present there is a great deal of independence and expertise in the Lords, but no democratic legitimacy and precious little representativeness.
	If we go to an elected House, we will have a great deal of legitimacy and representativeness, but very little expertise and virtually no independence. We will not have the sort of expertise that we get from the retired diplomats and generals whom I mentioned, speaking in foreign affairs and defence debates, and we will not get independence because the only way to be elected will be on a party ticket.
	Today's debate has a great ring of familiarity about it. It is like coming in on a movie that one has seen three times before being repeated on BBC4, and I confess that I am making much the same speech as I made before, as the right hon. Member for Swansea, West said he did. Perhaps we should leave the debate to those who were elected at the last election, to see whether they have different opinions. They may be the people who change the vote. I very much doubt whether anybody except the Leader of the House, who is standing on his head on the issue, will have changed their mind about it. Most of us thought about it very seriously indeed.
	Last time the House voted for no change, which I thought was a sensible decision. I rather hope that it will do so again. What we have is something that works. The problem of the House of Lords is that although it works in practice, it does not work in some arbitrary theory. It works, so let us not try to fix it.

Ben Chapman: The 2005 Labour manifesto requires us to reform the upper Chamber so that it is
	"effective, legitimate and more representative without challenging the primacy of the House of Commons."
	I readily accept that. The point at issue is how we achieve it. For me, any proposal that contains an elected element could not achieve that manifesto requirement. A small but significant amount of reform to the House of Lords as it currently exists would achieve those requirements.
	It has been much said that the post-1999 House of Lords, though in need of further reform, is doing a good job. Most people with an opinion on the subject say that. It is not broke. Statistically, it has not given the Government an easy ride. The number of rebellions, if that is the right term, between 1992 and 1999 was 133. Since then it has exceeded 350. There is widespread agreement that the 1999 reforms were a shot in the arm. We have an invigorated second Chamber, working to scrutinise and hold the Government of the day to account. It is more effective, more legitimate and more representative. Many of the options before us would damage the crucial tenets of the manifesto.
	The question that has been asked is how an all-appointed House of Lords can be seen as legitimate. That presumes that an all or partly elected Chamber would, of necessity, be more so. Why? Elections are an essential component of a participative democracy, but they are not the sum total of that democracy. If elected peers took the party Whip and were less prepared to challenge the Executive, would that make them more legitimate? If the turnout for their elections did not break the 30 per cent. barrier, would that make them more legitimate? If a list system prevented a clear positive vote for a single candidate, would that make it more legitimate?
	The convention that no one party should enjoy an overall majority has boosted confidence in the upper Chamber, as has the removal of all but the 92 hereditaries and the increasing number of people not taking the Whip. As has been said,
	"legitimacy may come from other places than those you would immediately think."
	I fear that the standing of politicians is generally low, and whatever the intention of the White Paper, it will add to that public opinion. The temptation for meddling by the Whips under any system involving elections, to the extent that debate and scrutiny might be curtailed, would be too great. One thing is surely clear and agreed—that we do not want in the Lords a replica of the system of Whips and party discipline that we have in the Commons. A fully or partly elected upper House would encourage that. If, for example, a piece of legislation was stalled or even blocked by the Lords, it would be difficult for the Whips. It is in their nature not to tolerate such a situation, knowing that they could intervene with their party affiliates to bring them into line if they so chose. Thus the system of checks and balances would be weakened.
	These are only hypothetical questions at this stage, but only in the sense that the bridge has not been crossed. If we were to cross it and the decision was taken and implemented, it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, and time consuming to try to reverse it. An all-elected House would present a challenge to our basic system of democracy. The principle of one Member, one constituency would go out of the window, to be replaced by an unpleasant spectacle of rivalry in particular locations between the two Houses. One can imagine that that would be difficult if two people claiming legitimacy in the same area were from different parties, but it might be more difficult if they were from the same party. Even if the geographical boundaries were different, people would still claim legitimacy within a particular area. Legislation proposed by the Executive on a mandate from the Commons could be stalled on a competing mandate from the Lords. Stalemates could ensue and not be broken without back-room deals behind closed doors, away from public view. That is surely not what we want. Far from having increased accountability, we would have less.
	A hybrid House would be even worse, with the danger that peers would not only challenge the Commons but challenge each other. Suppose that a vote was forced through on the back of the votes of appointed Members. Elected peers would be justifiably aggrieved. Elected Members might well set up "constituency" offices; unelected Members probably would not. Elected Members, notwithstanding the various systems of election being floated, could talk of "representing their constituents", or make claims to that effect; unelected Members could not. Elected Members could campaign in constituencies, as they saw them, and speak on local issues, vying for attention with MPs; unelected Members could not. That two-tier system would be the worst of both worlds.
	Whatever the proportion chosen by election, I have yet to come across a list system that would be clearly understandable by the electorate and offer a real choice of candidates. As Lord Steel has said:
	"Commons members should ponder what will happen when we have Lords members interfering in their constituency affairs on the grounds that they too have a mandate. They should talk to Scottish MPs and constituency MSPs who have been irritated by the activities of some of those elected to the Scottish Parliament on party regional lists. It is not a happy precedent."
	Why risk creating such a situation in England and making it even worse in Scotland and Wales? It is specious to assume that reforming the second Chamber in the manner proposed would reinvigorate our politics and democracy. It is often said that the previous vote was a train crash or a poor day for the House, but in fact it reflected the view that there was no consensus in the House and that none of the options on offer was better than the status quo. We are told that because previous attempts at wholesale reform have ended in compromise or defeat, we have a duty to "finish the job" and that anything less will amount to a failure, but that does not account for the changed circumstances of acceptance of the new Lords in which we find ourselves.
	In the same way that a convention that no party has an overall majority has been established and accepted following the 1999 reforms, we need evolution, not revolution. We should of course abolish the remaining hereditary peers and ensure that the appointments commission is statutory and has a codified role, as proposed by the campaign for an effective second Chamber. Those are real and substantive reforms that would preserve the best of what we now have. They would also be entirely consistent with manifesto commitments. The proposals in the White Paper, on the other hand, would not serve anyone's interests. The test of a good policy is not that it is the one that least dissatisfies the least number of people, which is the most positive argument that has been put forward for many of the proposals. Last year, a Populus poll found that 70 per cent. of people thought that the House of Lords was "doing a good job". That is a figure that most primary Chambers would die for.
	The "elected" options before us are all seemingly simple answers to a complex problem, but there is no simple answer other than reforming the present House of Lords on a limited basis. For all the talk of the popular vote as a means to re-engage the public, there is no clamour as regards any "legitimacy deficit" in the Lords. Nobody mentions it to me on the doorstep; indeed, people are astonished that we do not have better things to do at this time than to be considering this issue. Why on earth it has been brought forward now, I fail to understand. Yes, people are concerned to bring the Executive to account, but that is what checks and balances are for. We do not elect our judges or professors, but they are not illegitimate. The "key principles" set out in the White Paper—that of a balance between parties, Cross-Bench and independent Members, religious representation, racial and gender balance and regional representation—can all be achieved with a system of appointments. That may not be possible, or possible only at the cost of any real choice through a system involving elections.
	I want to end by urging caution. These constitutional arrangements are not ephemeral. The House of Lords has been around for hundreds of years. In the past few years it has done a much better job—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's time is up.

Douglas Hogg: Lest it be thought that I am approaching this debate on the basis of an undeclared vested interest, let me remind the House that my wife is a life Member of the House of Lords, and I suppose that I have a right to stand for election there as an hereditary peer. I would have to give up my present seat to do so, and I have not the slightest intention of doing that, though I am told that I have the undeclared support of the Whips Office should I change my mind.
	Let me begin my substantive remarks by making a few observations on what I have heard in this debate and on previous occasions. They are non-controversial—some would say commonplace—but none the less lead me to certain conclusions. The first and most obvious is that hon. Members in all parts of the House hold very diverse views and hold them passionately. That means that any Bill to be enacted will be long, controversial and arduous. Next, the House of Lords, as currently constituted, undoubtedly performs the modest role allocated to it extremely efficiently. Next, in the modern world, political authority stems from election and election only, and it is certain that if we had an elected or largely elected second Chamber, it would deem itself much more legitimate than it does now. I feel confident, too, that it would seek to take to itself powers that it currently does not have, or alternatively make more robust use of the powers that it does have. It seems to me that those are non-controversial views that would be shared by most right hon. and hon. Members.
	From those observations I draw a number of conclusions that have guided my thinking on the matter. If it be the settled will of Parliament that the second Chamber should not possess or exercise greater powers than it has now, then subject to three minor adjustments we would be ill advised to embark upon change. If hon. Members wish the second Chamber to have greater powers or, alternatively put, to make a more robust use of existing powers, then we should support a largely or wholly elected second Chamber. That is the choice that right hon. and hon. Members must make. My own view, as one of those who supports a wholly elected Chamber, is that I do so because I want it to have greater powers or to make more robust use of existing powers.
	I recognise that there is an argument in favour of the status quo, and I therefore make three suggestions to those who support that option as to how we can improve the House of Lords as presently constituted. First—I hope that hon. Members will not misunderstand this—the presence of the hereditary peerage in the second Chamber cannot be justified. Whether we get rid of it straight away or phase out the by-election system is a matter for debate, but there can be no argument for the hereditary peerage being Members of the legislature.
	Secondly, I agree with the Leader of the House when he speaks about a statutory appointments commission. It is very important that the independence of that board be enshrined in statute and convention.
	Thirdly, I want to see a diminution in the powers of party patronage. I therefore suggest that when a party puts forward for nomination to the second Chamber candidates from within that party, it should be required to put forward a number in excess of the places to be allocated to it, so that the appointments commission has an unfettered choice from that list. That would diminish patronage.
	I favour a wholly elected Chamber, and I shall briefly advance the reasons for that. Throughout the debate, we have referred to the primacy of the House of Commons. Perhaps we should be more modest and recognise that the concept of the primacy of the House of Commons in our constitution is pretty meaningless. It would be meaningful if we had a genuine separation of powers, but when the Executive are part of the legislature, "the primacy of the House of Commons" is an empty phrase.
	We should be honest with ourselves by asking whether we are properly performing the functions that are historically ours. As we all know well, those functions are: to scrutinise the Executive; to scrutinise legislation; and to call Governments to account. We know, if we are honest, that we do not do those things well, because the House has become largely the creature of party. As my father wrote in the 1970s, provided that the Executive retain control over their party, they can do what they please. That is not a proper way to govern in a democratic state.
	Some hon. Members claim that we can reform ourselves from within so as to assert the independence of Members of this House. I regret to say that I do not believe that that will happen. It is against history and the practice that we have adopted. The plain truth is that Members of the House of Commons have surrendered their independence to their party. That is the central vice.

John Hayes: My right hon. and learned Friend is making a powerful case against, to use his father's words, elective dictatorship. However, how would an elected House of Lords be more likely to be independent in a way that it currently is not? An elected House of Lords would also become a creature of party and exacerbate the problem that he has identified.

Douglas Hogg: My hon. Friend brings me to the exact point that I was about to make. I acknowledge the powerful argument, which he articulated, that an elected second Chamber could replicate the vices that I identified. The amendments that I tabled, which were understandably not selected, try to meet those objections. Mechanisms can be put in place. For example, I would support staggered elections and renewable terms—I do not agree with other hon. Members about that. I would choose the second Chamber by a proportional method other than the list system. I would ensure that Ministers were not Members of the second Chamber, to reduce the Executive's powers of patronage.
	I am willing to admit that there is a risk along the lines that my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) expressed, but we must make a choice. If we fail to do our duties, we need at least, in the phrase of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), to shame ourselves. We should use another Chamber to shame ourselves into performing the duties that we should undertake.

William Cash: Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that the House of Lords could—certainly after Second Reading of a measure—impose, through its Standing Orders, a prohibition or some other method of ensuring that the whipping system was brought under greater control? Indeed, we lost the control in this House in 1886, when we relinquished the Speaker's rules and handed over the whole whipping system and Standing Orders to the Executive.

Douglas Hogg: I need to be careful not to get on one of my favourite hobby-horses. I agree with much of what my hon. Friend has said. I have not been an enthusiastic supporter of the Whips Office since I was in it—it was not one of the more edifying periods in my career. I shall not get on the hobby-horse because I could become a bore on the subject. [Hon. Members: "Go on!"] No, indeed. However, I should like the power of the Whips Office to diminish here and in the other place.

Julian Lewis: Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

Douglas Hogg: I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me, but I am conscious of time.
	Many hon. Members have said truthfully that, if we go down the road of an elected second Chamber, we will lose much expert and wise counsel that is found in the other place. That is a terrible price to pay—and we would pay it. For all the reasons that have been given, many persons in the other House would not stand for election.
	However, ultimately, we have to make a fundamental choice about powers. Legitimacy requires election. If we appoint, we diminish legitimacy. We cannot have a second Chamber that has greater powers or makes more robust use of existing powers unless it has political legitimacy. That means election. With a heavy heart, I therefore support a wholly elected Chamber to enable another place, by legitimate and democratic means, to face down an over-mighty Executive.

Clive Efford: I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House on his handling of the subject and on turning defeat into victory—that is not too ungenerous—when he retreated from the voting method for tomorrow. It is worth putting on record that the skill with which he tackled the matter did him credit.
	If we vote for nothing else tomorrow, we should introduce a measure in the near future to remove the remaining 92 hereditary peers. There is unanimous support for that among Labour Members, and perhaps it is a sign of how times change that so many Opposition Members have also argued in favour of it.
	I shall not vote for elections to the other place for two reasons, which I hope I can explain. First, we need to define the function that we want the House of Lords to perform. We can do that only when we have defined the role that we, as Members of the House of Commons, want to perform in scrutinising legislation. What exactly is the role of Back Benchers in the process?
	Much has been said about the legitimacy of the other place. I believe that its legitimacy is in its function and how well it performs it. We must therefore define exactly what we want it to do. As the White Paper states, and assuming that we vote for retaining a second Chamber—I shall follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) in voting for a monocameral system—we want it to be a revising and reforming Chamber that at times has the power to delay legislation and to ask the House of Commons and the Executive to think again. No one has suggested that we want a weaker second Chamber or that its performance of its current function, when it is not elected, is weak. We are not talking about removing powers from the House of Lords. No hon. Member has suggested that it does not perform as well as it might, even though it is not elected. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House made it clear in his opening speech that we are not considering altering conventions between the House of Commons and the House of Lords and undermining the supremacy of the House of Commons as the primary legislative Chamber.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) pointed out in an intervention at the beginning of the Leader of the House's address, Lord Kingsland has said that some Members of the other place believe that having elections to the second Chamber will increase its legitimacy and therefore its power to thwart and defy the House of Commons, and will fundamentally change the relationship between the House of Lords and the House of Commons. We have not had the opportunity to debate that, or to debate our own scrutiny functions. By definition, therefore, we have not resolved what we want from the second Chamber.
	We are being invited to approve a 50 per cent. elected and 50 per cent. appointed upper House. Some would say that that is too timid a proposal. According to the White Paper, however, the only way to secure the representation in the legislative process of all sections of the community—ethnic minorities, people from different religious backgrounds, all walks of life and professions—is to have some form of appointment in the House of Lords. I presume that those with particular areas of expertise will be appointed to that revising Chamber to perform the reform and scrutiny function and amend legislation, thereby using their expertise in the most beneficial way. As the White Paper states, only by accepting the principle of appointment can we deliver that expertise and the representation of all sections of the community.
	When politicians debate the problem of participation in elections, I am always amazed that, in our pompous way, we assume that the answer is another election—that another election will be the magic bullet that encourages people to turn out and vote. But what are we asking them to turn out and vote for? We are asking them to elect not a legislative body, but a body that scrutinises the legislation that the Government are attempting to introduce. I am not convinced that the electorate will all flood to vote for a body with such limited powers.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Bill Etherington) said that he was in favour of a 100 per cent. elected second Chamber. I would suggest, however, that someone with his independence of mind would not make it on to a party list system as proposed in the White Paper. It is not true to say that we are elected in exactly the same way; we do go through constituency parties, but there is a murky science behind the positioning of candidates on a list. The proposal would not have a dramatic impact on people's confidence in the democratic process or on turnout.
	The role of the House of Commons, and the relationship between Back Benchers and the Executive, needs to be resolved. I am a firm believer in the Select Committee system, which works extremely well, but we have been too reluctant and reticent to build on its success and effectiveness in scrutinising legislation. When the Leader of the House was Home Secretary, he set up the Special Standing Committee for the Immigration and Asylum Bill, which involved people from the wider community with an interest in the subject in making a difficult piece of legislation more effective and acceptable. That is one of the best examples of the process, on which we should build. Back Benchers should have their own committee of appointment, separate from the Executive, to appoint Members to such bodies and co-opt expertise from outside the House. If we had a debate about the role of the House of Commons, and not just one about the House of Lords, we could address that issue.
	I do not accept that Ministers need to be appointed in the House of Lords. If there are to be such Ministers—I hope not—the Leader of the House should at least accept the principle that they should come from among the elected Members, if there are any, and not from the appointed Members of the House of Lords.

Richard Shepherd: There is one commanding principle—certainly for me—about the making of laws: those who make the laws should be accountable to those who bear the laws. That theme ran through the Labour party, and has run through most democratic, common law societies.
	The United States provides an instance of a second chamber that was elected with the thought that it might be less powerful than the House of Representatives. In the telling of that tale, we also learn that what we think we are doing might not be that which comes about. It is difficult to see the United States Senate as subordinate to the House of Representatives. It has taken on a duality of roles and an equality of purpose in the making of laws.
	I rather hope that that will be one of the consequences of an elected second Chamber. I am not afraid of the Executive in the House of Commons being blocked by those who have the legitimacy of election in the Lords or the second Chamber. I believe in that tension.
	During the 20th century, the high tide mark has been reached for party government. A leader of a party with a majority in the House of Commons has effectively been able to do almost anything, and we have harrumphed that. I have always been a Back Bencher—and for compelling reasons—because I am nervous of the great men on white horses who want to go to war, I am nervous of those with great schemes, and I want to ask the question, "Why?"
	I believe in this society, and I believe it to be a great one. Over recent years, however—I have been here for 28 years—I have seen the rise of the Executive almost unstopped. I have watched the parties—good men and women, elected and accountable to whole constituencies, areas and regions—lay themselves down in front of an Executive and ensure by their vote that what may not be a representative opinion prevails. I have heard about the mantra of the manifesto, which is mostly read—only read—by those who write it, from end to end. That is one of the truths. I came long ago to the judgment that a mention in a 78-page manifesto should not make it the compelling document that drives public policy in this country.
	I want to see the legitimacy of a second Chamber. However, the Leader of the House is perhaps ill-suited to steer us in the ways of elections, having saddled us with the most derided electoral system for elections to the European Parliament. I believe that there should be clarity when a representative is elected. The question "Who makes the law" and the question that follows it—"How do I get rid of them?"—along with all the other questions, melt into that great scheme of things.
	The Americans, in a logical, sensible way—those English gentlemen, largely, who were in revolt against the Crown—set out to consider what should be a second Chamber.

George Howarth: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Richard Shepherd: I will not, if the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me.
	What those gentlemen thought can be read in the federalist papers. It is well set out and well argued. One does not have to agree with it, but it is clear that what the Americans have had for 200 years is a second Chamber that is accountable. That is why I believe that excluding the ministerial team from our second Chamber so that no powers of patronage can reach it is an important development.
	The Leader of the House has suggested that the House of Lords should have 540 Members. Ours is an extraordinary country, if we think about it. With 1,400 Members of Parliament, we should be drowning under elected people. Why not 150 Members? America seems to run a second Chamber with 100.
	I am fearful of what might happen if we are not clear about what we want to achieve. I am quite clear about what I want: I want Governments to fight for their business. I want them sometimes to lose their business. That does no harm to the greater entity. We are now living in a world in which the House of Lords is held in higher esteem as it blocks measure after measure from the Government that touches on our liberties and freedoms, and I think it important for us to retain that check.
	I know that this is only the beginning of a process, but I profoundly believe that the House of Lords should be 100 per cent. elected. It is true that, as was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), we shall lose some very distinguished expertise, but are we not capable, as a people, of governing ourselves? Those who feel passionate about the processes of public life will engage in them properly, through election, through pamphleteering, through the ways in which laws are changed. I seek, passionately, a real check on the power of the Executive in this Chamber, for given the nature of human beings and the nature of our own history, I too have reached the conclusion that men and women are driven by patronage and the desire for office.
	The very function and purpose that sent us here to be representative has increasingly become something that we put to the back of our minds. The history and interests of Scotland, the north-east, the north-west, the midlands and the south-east are in many respects very different. We now have an appointed House of Lords that is essentially an SW1, W14, south-east House—a London House. How can we revitalise our nation? Where are the people who live in the midlands and come down to speak in the House of Lords? By and large, they are the political appointees who have retired from this House.
	I want an upper House—another place—that is representative of our country, from Scotland and Northern Ireland and from Wales to the south-west. I want a House whose Members are chosen by their people. That is why I think that something along the lines of the first European electoral areas would be satisfactory, with two Members who are elected "a third and a third" over six years. It is nonsensical for someone to stand for election for 12, 14 or 15 years with no possibility of ever being re-elected. There is no accountability in that. I can tell any lie to an electorate to be voted in—

Julian Lewis: Once.

Richard Shepherd: But they cannot get back at me, because I can stand only once. No: accountability must mean a regular appearance before our peers, the electorate.

Richard Burden: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), who made a characteristically thought-provoking speech.
	I want to speak about an issue that has arisen time and again today, the primacy of this Chamber. Let me put my cards on the table: I agree that this Chamber should have primacy, but I think it worth exploring what we mean by that. We should ask what is the primacy that we fear we shall lose if we have a predominantly elected second Chamber, what it allows us to do, and what the main function of this Chamber is.
	A number of those who argue most passionately against an elected second Chamber are those who are often also most passionate about the "majoritarian" system here in the House of Commons. It is no secret that I am not a great fan of our current electoral system, but there is a logic that tells us that if we go along with it and our party wins under first past the post, the role of the majority party is to deliver the Government's programme for that Parliament. Conversely, the role of the Opposition is to oppose and seek to thwart that programme.
	As I have said, I am not a fan of the current electoral system, but I do not have a particular problem with that arrangement. As a Labour MP, I want my Government to succeed. However, it is not as simple as that, is it? We have another role in this Chamber, and Parliament as a whole has another role: the role of scrutiny, even scrutiny of a Government who are the same colour as us. There are examples of that working quite well—I agree with those who have said the Select Committee system works pretty well—but when it comes to key issues, especially legislative issues, Parliament's scrutiny role can all too easily come into conflict with our role in delivering or, indeed, opposing a Government's programme.
	We saw an instance of that last week. It is no particular secret that the Offender Management Bill was somewhat controversial from the point of view of all parties. When Ministers and Whips tried to win around those of us who had one or two reservations, much of their effort consisted of trying to persuade us to exercise our scrutiny role in what they considered to be a better way—to persuade us, in other words, of the arguments in favour of the Bill.
	I do not think I am revealing too many trade secrets if I add that sometimes other arguments are brought to bear. We may be told, "We have made certain concessions on this Bill, and the time has come to back off. Do you really want the Government whom you support to be defeated?"—defeated, that is, in this place. In such circumstances, the issue of loyalty—loyalty to what we believe in, loyalty to our party, loyalty to the overall cause—is tied, and the test becomes whether we follow the party line on a measure. We are told that our responsibility is to support the Government not just when we consider them to be doing the right thing, but when we do not.
	Those pressures apply in opposition as well. In many ways, opposition is the mirror image. I am sure that some Opposition Members thought there were some rather good things in the Offender Management Bill: indeed, I could quote Opposition spokespeople who said many of those things a few months ago. However, there was also a temptation, or a pressure, to take the opportunity to inflict some damage if there was a chance of doing so. That is the role of an Opposition.
	All that is not entirely wrong. We are living in the real world, a world of 24-hour media. The ability of a Government to deliver their programme is important to their credibility, and the ability to inflict damage and, if possible, defeat a Government is important to an Opposition who wish to build up their own credibility; but we are kidding ourselves if we think that that does not compromise our ability to scrutinise. We can react to that in different ways, and the process often conspires to push us into the role of either loyalist or rebel: both are entirely possible, and in a sense quite easy, in this Chamber. However, I believe that if we are to do our job as parliamentarians we should not perform one or other of those roles, because we must be both part of the legislature—we are representatives of our parties—and we must scrutinise as well. Because of the pressures on us, we cannot do that properly and effectively on our own. Primacy means that the House of Commons must have the final say—I agree with that—but it also means that we must allow ourselves to be challenged, and not challenged only on those things that it is convenient or okay for us to be challenged on, but on those things that it is difficult for us to be challenged on.
	Therefore, the debate about the role and composition of the second Chamber is not to do with the relationship of one House to the other House. In my view, it is about the relationship between Parliament and the legislature on the one hand and the Executive on the other. Some say that if we were to accept that there is a need for revision and a democratic second Chamber—one that claims democratic legitimacy—that would create a problem for us. I do not agree; I think that to hold that view is to cling to a comfort blanket, and that does not reflect the real world. I take the opposite view: if we believe that a second Chamber must have the important constitutional role of scrutiny and revision, it must have a democratic legitimacy, although a different one—it needs term limits and a different method of election and a system that minimises, and probably eliminates, the chances of any party having an overall majority. If we were to have all of that, that would give us the chance of having a Chamber with a different composition and, hopefully, greater independence.
	I also think that there is a role for a minority of non-elected people, to retain some of the expertise that exists in the current House of Lords. In terms of an elected element, I say to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that I can live with a list system, but I do not think that we will get the independence that is wished for if it is a closed list system—or, indeed, just a partly open list system. An open list system is the route that should be chosen—or something similar that achieves that end.
	The presence of non-elected people can add to the strength and the role of the second Chamber. However, to those who say that we should retain the voices of such people in that Chamber—the voices of people who do not want to stand for election but who have something distinctive to contribute—and who say that the way to achieve that is by appointment and only by appointment, I say that if the second Chamber is to have the role proposed for it, it must be able to say something important to the people outside Parliament. In the last Parliament when Baroness Morris was a Member of this House, she gave a powerful speech in favour of a predominantly elected second Chamber. She said that it had to ring true with the people out there, and I agree. One of the things that will allow it to ring true is if it offers opportunities for anybody in this country who wants to have a role in the process of scrutiny, a role in the process of revision and a role in our democratic process, but who wants to have different roles from those entailed by standing for election to this House. Such people can put themselves forward to an appointments commission—and perhaps they can get appointed as a result of that. However, they should also have the right to stand for election and to say to the people in their region—or whatever the boundary is—that they want to perform those roles. If that were the case, that would be a part of what would make that second Chamber legitimate, and that would also add to its role of helping Members of this House to scrutinise legislation and to provide a check on the Executive. It would also be a stimulus to this House to do its job better and give greater clarity to the roles of Parliament and the Executive.

John Thurso: May I make it clear at the outset of my speech that my preferred option is a 100 per cent. elected Chamber? I used to believe in the predominantly elected option, which I defined as about 80 per cent. or 70 per cent. elected, until I attended a public meeting, and having stated that I wanted that little headroom for the great and the good who would not stand for election, somebody in the audience asked me to name them, and I could not. I therefore decided that 100 per cent. was the proper proportion. However, like the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), I am fairly certain that that will not be the outcome, and I will therefore happily accept a lower percentage of elected Members than 100 per cent.
	I am also on record as having said that I believe that Lords reform is a process and not an event. I believe that from the moment when elections are introduced, that will become an unstoppable process—I am in favour of that—and that we will eventually end up with an elected element of about 80 per cent. or 100 per cent. Therefore, I have a slightly different view from that of some of my colleagues, who might feel bound not to vote for a lower percentage. However, they are doing a very good job of trying to persuade me, and at the end of tomorrow night, having listened to the debate, I shall take my own counsel and decide what I should do.
	I also wish to make a point at the outset about hybridity. A number of Members have said that a hybrid House would be bound to fail. In response to that, I just point out that for 50 years the House of Lords was a hybrid House in that its Members included those who got there by an accident of birth and those who got there by an accident of patronage, and they co-existed perfectly happily. I believe in the good will of the men and women who will find themselves in that House, and I believe that they will be able to co-exist.
	It is important for those of us who believe in reform to state why we believe in that. Several Members have tonight used the old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". It is seductive to think of the House of Lords as somewhere where diligent scrutiny work is done and wonderful debates are held and to believe that it is best left alone, but to think that is to make a very great mistake, because the House of Lords is fundamentally broken. It is the lack of legitimacy, which many Members have referred to, that makes it broken. For anybody who has sat in the other place and experienced hours and hours of work in Committee—with, I have to say, greater diligence than I have ever experienced in a Committee in this place—and on Third Reading and Report, it is sad to then see that work cavalierly tossed aside by a House that has rushed in to vote with no knowledge of what they have done, which is what happens. That 90 per cent. of such work goes to waste is not a particularly good recommendation.
	Any second Chamber that is not composed predominantly, or wholly, of an elected element will not be considered legitimate by us, by the media or by the public. It must have such legitimacy, and that is why I reject the idea that there should be an appointed House.

John Bercow: Although many peers work exceptionally hard and regularly demonstrate immense expertise, does the hon. Gentleman not agree that, on the whole, the most vociferous champions of an unreformed second Chamber are current Members of the unreformed second Chamber, and that on the principle that no one should be judged in his own cause we should not pay too much attention to that particular form of special pleading?

John Thurso: I agree. What happens is extraordinary; I have watched many people, including some members of my own party, go native very rapidly. There is a practical point in this—it is one of the reasons why I believe in introducing rolling elections. I would get rid of none of the appointed life peers. I would let them just quietly die off.
	Let me turn briefly to the unicameral system, which several Members have mentioned. For a unicameral system to work it has to be able to take a decision that goes against the Government—the Executive—and to be able to take that decision without bringing that Government down. That might work in small countries, but I do not think that it can work in large countries. Even with proportional representation and modernisation, it would not be possible to arrive at a situation where that could be made to work. In parenthesis, I should say that in my judgment the experience of the Scottish Parliament highlights that, because what happens there is that the elections under PR result in a negotiation at the beginning and there is then created through partnership the same sort of elected dictatorship as we get in this place with the first-past-the-post system.

Jack Straw: Does the hon. Gentleman not also agree that having a unicameral Parliament is particularly dangerous in cases where the Government are drawn from the principal Chamber? The situation might be slightly different in a presidential system, where all the Ministers are outwith the Chamber, but it is very dangerous when they are drawn from it.

John Thurso: I completely agree with the Leader of the House.
	I therefore come to the only option left: an elected Chamber. Several Members have said that we should look at function before form. It is a good architectural principle that function dictates form, but therein is a dead-end and a trap that must be avoided at all costs. This is the fourth or fifth major debate on House of Lords reform in which I have taken part in one or other of the Houses. I used to think that function should come first and form should follow, but I have come to understand that that is the way of no progress. Our start point, rather, should be to say, "We are broadly content with the work that the second Chamber does today, and we should therefore allow its function to evolve once we have given it its form." In looking at that form, I suggest that we need to look at its strengths and weaknesses.
	There are strengths in the other place. One is that no one party has overall control, which is important. The light whipping—one cannot whip someone whom one cannot get rid of—is also important and leads to independence. Peers have no constituencies and therefore have a regional or national view, and they can devote a lot of time to legislation. The most striking difference between our two Houses is that in the other place, all the work centres around the Chamber. Peers get paid only if they sit; if they are in the House but they do not sit, they do not get paid. Here, much of our work is constituency-based, outside the Chamber.

John Hayes: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

John Thurso: Very briefly; I think that I have no overtime left.

John Hayes: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Let me be clear: he is saying that he wants Lords who spend their time in the Chamber, who do not have constituencies and who are not answerable to parties. How would they be democratically accountable to anybody?

John Thurso: If they are elected, they will be highly democratically accountable—a point that I will come to.
	The other side of the coin is the weaknesses, one of which is legitimacy. The current House is unrepresentative. When the hereditaries were there, we had innumerable debates on salmon fishing, rather than on the common fisheries policy. The current composition is heavily weighted towards Oxbridge, former Members of this House and lawyers. Election would certainly help there. The other place is also heavily weighted towards older Members, if I might put it that way. A single long term of 12 years, with a composition renewable by one third every four years, would give a system that best mirrors the House's current strengths. Such a system is most likely to deliver a House that will do the work that we require of it, and in a legitimate way that will enable it to stand up to this House to a certain extent.
	I turn to primacy, about which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) made some points. We have to be clear what primacy actually means. The White Paper gives three criteria, the first two of which I can happily agree with. First, this House is directly elected at a general election and therefore forms the Government—I would add in parenthesis that it also supplies the Ministers—and secondly, we are in charge of the money. However, I question, at the very least, the third reason given. It is ridiculous to expect a reformed legislative House to have its views rejected as often and in as off-handed a manner as we have been wont to do. Although this House may rightfully expect to prevail on major manifesto commitments, we must expect to give way more often; otherwise, what on earth is the point of reform? So I say, primacy, yes, but supremacy, no. We want a strong Parliament, which requires a strong House of Lords.
	I return to the practical point of how we get from an endless debate on how to reform, to achieving that reform. There are many things that I have not attempted to address this evening, such as the size of the constituencies and the manner in which we would hold such elections; they can wait for what the Leader of the House described as the sunny uplands—if we ever get there. The practical point is that Members of the other place have a genuine self-interest in this regard. If we tell them that they are all safe and we provide for them to resign, quite a lot of them will; they will retire gracefully. If we feed in one third over a 12-year period, we will end up with a slightly smaller House—certainly a lot smaller than the one that I was in. That might be pork-belly politics, but it is a small price to pay for achieving our goals.
	It is unthinkable that our great democracy should continue to live in a time warp of heredity and patronage. It is time to reform. It is time to put our trust in the people, and it is time, frankly, for a stronger Parliament.

Chris Bryant: I am more than delighted to follow the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso). He is the living embodiment of what can happen when somebody goes native when changing from one Chamber to the other—of what a good thing it can be to be subjected to the process of election.
	I start with a point that the hon. Gentleman made well. If we want a strong Parliament, we cannot have a partly illegitimate Parliament. We can have a strong Parliament that is able to do a proper job by its Government—incidentally, I believe that good government can happen only when Parliament does a good job by it—only if we make sure that it is not hampered, hobbled and crippled by part of its very constitution.
	There are significant problems with the way in which the House of Lords is currently constituted. It is extraordinary that some Members have argued today that part of our Parliament should be deliberately illegitimate. It is extraordinary that we are happy to see so unrepresentative a second Chamber as we presently have. I merely note the fact that the average age of Members of the second Chamber is 68. In the 19th century, this House had to introduce legislation to protect children from being sent to work at the age of 10 or 12. We should be protecting the ancient, the elderly and the decrepit, who should not be forced still to work at the age of 85 and 93. We should be enabling them to retire or to resign. It is extraordinary that people appointed to the second Chamber have their jobs for life. Of course, that means that somebody convicted of perjury, for instance, cannot be sacked and removed from the second Chamber. For that matter, peers cannot retire. One Liberal Democrat peer has tried to retire—sort of; he is just not attending any more—but officially and technically, he is still a Member of the second House.
	One Member pointed out earlier that the second Chamber now represents London almost exclusively. Of the 323 new peers appointed since 1997, 147 come from London and 38 come from elsewhere in the south-east of England; only three come from the north-east, and only five from the east midlands. It is wholly unrepresentative because appointment very rarely leads to anything other than an unrepresentative selection of people.

John Thurso: I have a technical point for the hon. Gentleman. Peers may take leave of absence, which means that they cannot get fees and cannot vote, but there is no way out other than in a box or through the House of Lords Act 1999.

Chris Bryant: Indeed. The hon. Gentleman makes my point for me.
	The most extraordinary point—I find it odd that it has not been mentioned today so far—is the process of by-elections for hereditary peers. We already have a hybrid Chamber, with people who are elected to it, some who are there by appointment and the bishops, who are halfway between election and appointment, because each diocese has a process to determine support for them to be put in their posts.
	There are only 91 hereditary peers at present, and a by-election is being held. Forty-seven people could stand—they also form the electorate—and 43 of them are standing. All of those people are busily going around trying to persuade others to vote for them—and sometimes trying to persuade themselves to vote for themselves. It is hoped that some people will get more than their own vote. In any event, it is an extraordinary process. The last time we had a by-election for a hereditary peer, the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein—who is in favour of elections for the second Chamber—defeated an earl after a fifth redistribution of the votes. It is the only election in the British electoral system that uses the alternative vote.
	All of that brings the system into disrepute, and that is because it is based on three fundamentally flawed principles. The first is heredity. None of us—the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) may enlighten us later about whether he is an exception—believes that heredity is a principle that should be embodied in our constitution. Few of us would now choose a plumber because his father was also a plumber. It is bizarre that we should choose to believe that someone should be a legislator because his father was a legislator.
	Nor is appointment a suitable system. Many people have referred to expertise. Indeed, they have gloried in the expertise of the second Chamber. However, my experience of the Communications Act 2003 and the debates in both Houses was that although the debate in the House of Lords was informed by seven or eight former director-generals of the BBC or people who had run various broadcasting organisations, all their expertise referred to the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s. They were still talking about cathode ray tubes and whether the black and white television licence was too expensive, when we were trying to talk about embedded phonograms and other issues of today. The process of appointment, especially for life, will inevitably mean that the second Chamber will always be reactionary and out-of-date in its expertise.
	Another problem with appointment—and it affects all parties, not only the Labour party—is that it is like the proverbial tar baby. It is remarkably difficult to devise a system of appointment that does not collapse into cronyism or dodgy deals. That is why it would be almost impossible for any political party represented in this Chamber to suggest people for appointment to the second Chamber. Probably even Mother Teresa would not be able to be appointed to the second Chamber now, such is the level of distrust in the nation with the process of appointment.
	It has not been mentioned much, but every time the public are asked how the second Chamber should be composed, they say it should be by election—

Jack Straw: Wholly or partly.

Chris Bryant: The Leader of the House corrects me. That is not to say that a single person has ever approached me in Treorchy market and said, "Listen, Chris. The most important thing you have to deal with is the House of Lords." Nobody does that, but when people are asked, they say that they prefer election. I know that some hon. Members have pooh-poohed that suggestion and said that it is because the public do not know better, but I think that we should trust the people more than that.
	The third principle by which people get to sit in the second Chamber is through the reserved seats for the bishops. I am glad that we are not voting on that tomorrow. I would personally prefer to remove the bishops, because I do not think that theocracy is a very good way to run a country, but I am glad that we are not having that vote tomorrow. Instead, we will divide on a set of clear proposals.
	There are two better principles for determining who sits in the second Chamber. First, many hon. Members have referred to the primacy of the Commons, and I also believe in that. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross said that it should be primacy, but not supremacy. I believe that it should be primacy, but not exclusivity. It is vital—and we should enshrine it in statute, not just some gentleman's agreement as at present—that the Government of this country should be formed only by virtue of its majority in this Chamber and, for that matter, that the Prime Minister, and several other members of the Cabinet, can only be elected Members of this Chamber. That is not our constitutional settlement and that is something that we should change. It is important that when we do have elections, we do not have the whole second Chamber elected in one go, because that runs the danger of having the two Chambers at loggerheads because they have different mandates, both clearly established by election. That is why it is important that we have a rolling system of elections to the second Chamber.
	Many people focus primarily on the revising job and the confrontation that the second Chamber might have with the Government. However, it is often the Government who use the second Chamber to introduce amendments that they have had more time to think about. That is a very important role and one of the reasons why we need a second Chamber. Another is the process of scrutiny in a different environment, away from the rigours of the constituency focus that we have in this House, and that can be done better in a second Chamber.
	The other principle, which should be our primary principle, is democracy. I was partly brought up in Spain under Franco, and many people from other countries, if they were to listen to British people talk about democracy today, would be bewildered and saddened. They would ask why we are so jaded about democracy. What is wrong that we are able to insist on democracy in Iran, Iraq or elsewhere in the world, but are not prepared to stand by it in this country? Have we been voting for too long? Do we take it for granted?
	Reform of the House of Lords is part of a steady progress from the end of the absolute monarchy under the Stuarts to the abolition of the rotten boroughs, the introduction of extended and then universal male suffrage, the secret ballot and, finally, votes for women. This will be seen as the next stage in an important process of change in Britain.

Edward Leigh: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), even though I do not agree with everything—or indeed anything—that he says. He sometimes gets carried away by the exuberance of his rhetoric. To suggest that in the well informed debate on the renewal of the BBC licence the other place was talking about black and white sets and cathode ray tubes is absurd. Everybody recognises that their debates are often—in fact, usually—much better than our own.
	As politicians we are naturally obsessed with composition, but before we worry too much about that we should ask what we are trying to achieve. What is the House of Lords for? What does it do badly? What could it do better?
	In the 1968 debate on the issue, Michael Foot quoted the Duke of Wellington who said that
	"nobody cared a damn for the House of Lords".—[ Official Report, 14 March 1968; Vol. 760, c. 1612.]
	He also suggested that that sentiment should be incorporated in legislation reforming the House of Lords. Whatever our obsessions are, the public are generally apathetic about it. The truth is that the House of Lords does its job well, it is worthy and much of it is dull. If the House of Lords were in an office block down the road with a spartan canteen attached, I sometimes wonder whether Members of Parliament would sell their souls to join it or rich men would spend oodles of their own money to get into it. It does a good job, much of it boring, but it is not a fundamental issue that is dividing the British public.
	Indeed, every survey shows that the British public are vague about what the House of Lords does. In the 1968 debate, Enoch Powell was asked what the House of Lords was for. He replied:
	"It is not for anything, it just is, like an oak tree. You don't ask what an oak tree is for, do you?"
	There is a lot in that. I think that the House of Lords exists to correct Governments, not to change them. It does that correcting job well.
	I know that high Tory principles are no longer popular, but we believe that if it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change. What is wrong with the House of Lords? Is it extravagant or wasteful? What is its cost per Member, compared with the House of Commons—or, dare I ask, the European Parliament? Is it bad at its job of amending legislation? Does it lack independence? Is there a lack of quality in its Members? Are its debates second rate? Is it a creature of the Executive?
	The answer to all those questions is no. The House of Lords does its fairly dull job well. Perhaps, before we start reforming the other place—before we look at the mote in its eye—we should think of the beam in our own. Forty years ago, Tom Galbraith, that left-wing firebrand, quoted Hilaire Belloc's lines:
	"And always keep a hold of Nurse
	For fear of finding something worse."
	He reminded the House of Commons that we should
	"stop scratching at the pimple of privilege in the Lords, and take a good strong dose of salts that will flush out the constipated workings of our own Chamber."—[ Official Report, 19 November 1968; Vol. 773, c. 1214.]
	Forty years later, there is still a lot of truth in that.

William Cash: I agree with my hon. Friend about reform in the House of Commons, but does he accept that there is something incongruous about the fact that those who are appointed to the other place are able to collect allowances without taking part in Divisions?

Edward Leigh: No doubt there are rogues and scoundrels, lazy people and good ones in the House of Lords, but a couple of hundred Members there charge the electorate very little for doing a damn good job. We should leave them alone.
	This Chamber is the most supine lower House in the western world, the one most under the thumb of the Executive. Our Select Committees are among the weakest in the world, and are nothing like the Congressional Committees. We have minimal control—

Helen Goodman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

Edward Leigh: Of course I give way to my fellow member of the Public Accounts Committee.

Helen Goodman: Surely the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that the excellent PAC, which he chairs so admirably, is weak?

Edward Leigh: The hon. Lady can say that, but of course I cannot. I was about to say that this House has minimal control over the estimates, even though that was the function for which it was originally created hundreds of years ago.
	So what is wrong with the House of Lords as it is? We are told that it is not democratic and that only elections confer respectability. Apparently, the public are all in favour of an elected upper House. At least, that is what all the focus groups say, but focus-group policies always ensure that liberal orthodoxy wins in this House. That is why I am always on the losing side in every free vote that we have.
	Be that as it may, I spent some minutes talking to some of my constituents earlier today and they asked some sensible questions. Is there any appetite for elections to the House of Lords? Does it do a good job already? What would the turnout be in elections for a third, or half, of half a Parliament, which could delay legislation for one year?
	What on earth would be the interest among the public for elections that would be much the same as those for Members of the European Parliament? I wonder whether any hon. Members in the Chamber—apart from those with London constituencies—can name a London MEP?

David Howarth: I can.

Edward Leigh: Well, it would have to be an anorak from the Liberal party. No sane person takes any interest in what MEPs do. The partly open, partly closed system being proposed will ensure that 100 people from the east midlands will go to a cinema in Nottingham to select a few people—who cannot get into this House—to be Members of the House of Lords. That is what the reality will be.
	No one in this debate has answered the point made 40 years ago by Reggie Maudling, that
	"The problem of the second Chamber is not so much a potential challenge to us but the fact that it would reflect the political composition of the House, in which case it would be a rubber stamp, or a different political composition, in which case there would be a constant conflict between the two Houses."—[ Official Report, 19 November 1968; Vol. 773, c. 115.]
	At present, the House of Lords is a revising Chamber. Its Members make their points sensibly and well and then, after hours of debate, they back down and accede to the elected Chamber. The system works pretty well.
	No one has given a convincing explanation of what will happen when elected people in the other place say that they have greater democratic legitimacy and refuse to back down. Will the Government invoke the Parliament Act every year, on just about every Bill? What would that do for democracy?
	I accept that I might lose that argument, and that people really might want elections to the House of Lords. For the moment, let us assume that elections will make this place more vigorous. I do not understand the argument that to ensure that we become more vigorous we must reform the other place, but the elections that are held should be based on the system that people understand. We should have senators for Lincolnshire, or London, or Derbyshire: we do not need them to be elected to represent enormous regions that no one understands.
	Moreover, it is absurd that people should be allowed to serve for 15 years. Where did that idea come from? Even President de Gaulle, who wanted to be a republican king, did not want to serve for 15 years without an election.

Jack Straw: I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the idea came from a former Conservative Chief Whip.

Edward Leigh: That may not be a recommendation. It is still a daft idea. No one can accept it.
	Why are we cursed with the principle that all the electoral regions must be the same? Under the American constitution, both Rhode Island and California send two Senators to the US Congress. People in America understand who their Senators are.
	However, let us assume that I lose that point as well. I shall try to persuade the House about my final point. It is very important: it is at the heart of the amendment that I tabled, and I think that the Leader of the House may agree with it.
	I beg the House to ensure that the House of Lords is not filled with clones of the Members in this place. We in this House are creatures of the Executive. Most of us, whatever may be said in public, privately want to be one thing and one thing only—a Minister of the Crown.

John Bercow: Not me.

Edward Leigh: Even my hon. Friend, one day, may harbour those ambitions.

John Bercow: I think not.

Edward Leigh: I urge the Leader of the House to drop the daft idea of the 15-year term. He should consider the amendments that would prevent people elected to the other place from being allowed to serve as Ministers. If we are to have an elected other place, that provision would make it much more like the US Senate. People would serve in the upper House who were interested not in becoming Ministers but in holding the Executive to account.
	Those are the sort of people whom we need. My good friend the late Eric Forth was interested in going to an elected place for precisely that reason. In many conversations he told me that he had no more interest in being a Minister, but that he wanted to hold the Executive to account.

John Bercow: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Edward Leigh: Not now, as I must finish in a moment.
	Do we really want to have a load of ambitious 30- or 40-somethings in the other place who want to become Ministers? That is the crucial question. Even if they are appointed for many years, that insidious ambition will creep into their souls. The option should be taken away from them. They should be told that their job is to advise and consent. If necessary, they could be given a role in approving the appointment of ambassadors, as happens in the US Senate, or in delaying legislation. They could have all the revising powers, but they must not be creatures of the Executive.
	In the past 20 years, the Opposition have defeated the Government of the day only a handful of times. The other place works when it comes to holding the Executive to account. We must not throw the baby out with the bathwater. If we are going to have an elected Chamber, we must at least ask what it is for, and ensure that is genuinely independent.

Helen Goodman: I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in the debate and to follow the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh).
	One of the constitutional innovations of the new Labour Government was to allow ordinary people to give evidence to royal commissions. I was the first so-called ordinary person to give evidence to the Wakeham commission on reform of the House of Lords in 1999. I am glad to say that arriving here has not changed my fundamental attitude to the way in which the upper House should be composed.
	As other hon. Members have said, Britain is an unusual country. It is a multinational state built up over 500 years from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland and, in the past 50 years, it has become a multi-ethnic country. At the moment, 5 per cent. of the population belongs to a non-white minority community, and the proportion is much higher among young people. Yet this diversity is hardly reflected in the House of Lords. Why is it that only one parliamentarian in five is a woman? Is it right that ethnic minorities are under-represented? Is it right that 26 places are reserved for Anglican bishops and that we retain 92 hereditaries? As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, the average age of a peer is rising 70.
	Although we have no bishops and peers, the position in this Chamber is not much better. So, with institutions that look like this, is it any wonder that only 37 per cent. of young people voted in the last general election? These inadequacies in our reflectiveness of the general population represent a deeper problem—an inability so far to make sense of our new British identity. To do this, we need not only laws relating to individual citizenship, rights and responsibilities; we need institutions that reflect our diversity.
	Unless we happen to be a bishop or an hereditary peer, the only part of our identity that counts for political purposes in this country is the geographical constituency within which we live. The House of Commons represents us by providing representation for the community in which we live—rural, urban, industrial or by the sea. But for most people, that is only part of their definition of themselves. Other aspects of our lives such as gender and race matter too. Arguably, economic and social changes mean that the geographical communities are becoming less significant over time.
	I believe that House of Lords reform represents an opportunity to right some of these wrongs. We could establish a second Chamber that complements the Commons and the make-up of which suits its revising functions and focus on individual rights. I am therefore sympathetic to those who argue for option 1—a reformed appointed Chamber which represents all regions, classes, faith communities, the voluntary sector, ethnic minorities, gender balance and, I would add, young people. However, I cannot agree that the Members should be appointed. It is a basic principle in a country that claims to be democratic that those who legislate should be elected by those for whom they legislate. That consideration overrides all others.
	My preference, therefore, would be for elections by colleges and to allow people to choose for themselves which they belong to, in a similar way to the system in the United States, where people can register as a Republican or a Democrat. So if a large number of people wished to define themselves as women, they could vote in that college, whereas if they wanted to represent themselves as members of the Church of England, they could vote in that college.
	So I was disappointed when I read the White Paper and saw in section 7 the brief dismissal of what have been called indirect elections. I do not believe that they are as impractical as has been suggested. It is the system, roughly speaking, that is used for the Irish Senate. As far as I understand it, it is a system that we designed and that the Irish have used for 90 years. However, it is not on the agenda today. If nothing succeeds in getting through, I hope that we can look again at so-called indirect elections.
	As that option is not on the table, therefore, I shall vote for a predominantly elected Chamber—options 4, 5 and 6; 50 per cent. elected, 60 per cent. elected and 80 per cent. elected. I shall not vote for 100 per cent. elected because I am not confident that the system of elections or the political parties will be capable of producing the diversity that we need in our legislature. Appointments are needed to make up the deficits.
	I also agree with the amendment that the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) tabled, which unfortunately we will not be voting on. It suggests that either none or all the major belief systems should be represented. For example, if we went down the route of electing 80 per cent. of the Members, the Anglican bishops would take a fifth of the share of appointments. I do not think that it is right, as some people have suggested, to say that no longer reserving 26 places for the Anglican bishops necessarily means the disestablishment of the Church of England. Most of the bishops to whom I have spoken admit that they do not have time to do justice to the role. It is objectionable to many of us, and even to many who belong to the Church of England, that the sexism in the Church is brought into the legislative process here for the whole nation.
	It would be perfectly reasonable for us to require the Church of England to elect its representatives as well and for us to look more widely at the other faith communities having elections. Notwithstanding the fact that we are not going to vote on that, I hope that the Leader of the House will ask the faith communities to consider that now, so that we have some proper preparations and when we come to legislation the problem will have been addressed.

Pete Wishart: In considering this debate and listening to the many speeches that we have heard today, I am still no further forward as to exactly what the House of Lords is expected to do, what functions it performs, whether it represents value for money and whether it is necessary at all. We live cheek by jowl with our be-ermined Friends, who exist a few hundred metres along the corridor. We refer to the House of Lords as the other place, but to me it is totally other-worldly. Look who inhabits that place. We have the landed gentry, the bishops, the odd ex-MP bumped off to make way for Cabinet Ministers and boundary reviews, but more than anything else we have those who are described as "the great and the good"—the appointed peers. We appoint them as our betters and expect them to ensure that our legislation is improved.
	It strikes me at times that all the people who inhabit that place are, first, incredibly wealthy. They are unrepresentative of our general community. I do not know how many multimillionaires there are in the communities of hon. Members here, but there is certainly a number of them down the road. At times it seems to me that the House of Lords exists to emphasise class difference, to suggest a separateness. This belief that we should expect our betters to help us legislate suggests a throwback to a pre-democratic age, and it should have no place in a modern 21st-century legislature. For what it is worth, I believe that the House of Lords is an unnecessary, underworked, overpriced institution whose standing in the eyes of the public, contrary to what has been said here, has never been lower as a result of how the public have observed the House of Lords in the past year through the cash for peerages scandal.

Julian Lewis: How does the hon. Gentleman account for the poll showing that more than 70 per cent. of people think that the House of Lords does a good job, and how does he account for the fact that the people who seem to be taking the blame for cash for peerages are Members of this House, not least the Prime Minister?

Pete Wishart: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for mentioning that poll. The reason why the public responded to the question as they did is because of the comparison with this place. Never before has the House of Commons been so unpopular, given the daily kicking we receive from the media and the way that people are encouraged to think about us.
	If we asked ordinary members of the public to give their predominant image of the House of Lords, they would describe two things. The first would be some belligerent old soul gently napping on those comfortable red Benches while listening to an interminable speech by a fellow octogenarian. A more sinister image would be of the House as a repository for one of the millionaire chums of one of the main parties in the cash for peerage and honours scandal. I am certain that the ordinary public do not view the House of Lords with any great affection; they do not even know what its functions are.
	We can test that statement. Is it not curious that among all the electoral options before us no one has suggested a stand-alone election to the House of Lords? The election has to be combined with another election. Let us imagine the excitement on Lords election day. The hustings would be packed to the gunwales. There would be no holding back. Everybody would be rushing off to the ballot box to re-elect the Baroness Billington of Boxington, or whatever, to reward that noble peeress for the fine work she had done while gently napping on the red Benches.
	The major context for this debate on reform of the House of Lords is the cash for honours scandal. Never before has the membership of the House of Lords been under such scrutiny from the public. More importantly, never before has the case for appointment by Prime Minister and by party been so undermined and so tarnished. In its opinion poll, the Hansard Society found that only 6 per cent. of the public favoured a fully appointed House. That shows the public's grave concerns about the potential abuse of appointment and about political parties stuffing the place full of their cronies and funders. The very suggestion that someone could sit in our legislature on the basis of having given a significant amount of money to a political party is as appalling as it is unacceptable. The defence we hear from No. 10 and others is that those people are in the House of Lords solely as party political appointees, which completely destroys any argument for political appointment.
	In the course of the next few weeks, days or perhaps hours, the Metropolitan police will determine whether that system is illegal. They should be left to get on with their work, on which I support them. However, we should use the opportunity for reform to ensure that never again will there be a whiff of suspicion that people can enter our legislature solely due to their ability to pay. The Scottish National party will not support any party political appointment and we encourage other Members not to accept that practice.
	What does the House of Lords cost? Do we get value for money? According to its annual report it cost a cool £106 million in 2005-06. At a time when we are holding back public sector pay, when nurses cannot even have an inflation-rate pay rise and our salaries and expenses are under such scrutiny, perhaps we should suggest that our friends in the press and the public have a look at what is going along at the other end of the building.
	Does the House of Lords give value for money? I asked the House of Commons Library for a breakdown of the peers' working day but it could not give me that information, so I put together my own study. I made a list of all the peers and selected all those who had taken the name of a place in Scotland as part of their title—we all know how much peers like their titles. I found 36 such peers and checked them up on the excellent TheyWorkForYou.com website. In the past year, 24 of them had made fewer than five contributions. More staggering and more appallingly, 10 of them had made no contribution at all. There is something quite out of kilter with the view of an over-worked peer even in what I admit was an unscientific, unreliable study. None the less, I believe it is quite representative of what actually goes on down there.
	There are obvious honourable exceptions. The Lords Forsyth, Foulkes, Campbell and Pearson have made more than 50 contributions each, but with the exception of those four peers the remainder of the 36 made fewer than 200 contributions over a year. To put that in perspective, TheyWorkForYou.com shows that my modest contributions to debates this year amount to 54, which is more than a quarter of the total contributions of those 36 peers. Apart from a few distinguished Members, those be-ermined bods do next to zilch.
	I am reminded of the chorus of the peers in "Iolanthe"—I promise I will not sing it to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker:
	"The House of peers,
	Throughout the years,
	Did nothing in particular,
	And did it very well."
	That perfectly sums up the House of Lords in its current incarnation.
	Let us contrast that picture with the House of Lords annual report, where we find that on an average sitting day 400 peers turn up. Of course, as we have heard, they have to turn up to qualify for their allowances, but what happens between turning up and making a contribution? For goodness' sake, simply asking for the window to be opened counts as a contribution. While Members consider that quandary, they should remember that their lordships' expenses cost the taxpayer a whopping £15 million in 2005-06.
	With more than 640 Members of Parliament surely we can find a new 21st-century solution to legislating. We need only look northwards to the Scottish Parliament—as has been mentioned already—to see that unicameralism can work. There are powerful Committees which indulge in all sorts of excellent pre-legislative scrutiny. Why cannot we have such powerful Committees in the House of Commons? We could combine Select and Standing Committees to make new powerful bodies that could take expert evidence and call expert witnesses. That is the 21st-century solution to the House of Lords quandary. It calls for scrapping the whole shooting match and starting the work ourselves.
	I am disappointed that we shall not have the opportunity to vote on the bishops—I join the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on that. It is an absolute disgrace that in our multi-faith society we continue to favour one faith over all others. The fact that we are alone among western democracies in having religious representation in our legislature reinforces the view that the House of Lords is some sort of strange, eccentric, medieval throwback. We live in a multicultural, multi-faith society. Modern Britain is a society with great diversity of religions and non-religious beliefs, and continuing to privilege one denomination over others is preposterous and anti-democratic. If we are serious about modernising the House of Lords there can be no place for unelected bishops.
	I will vote for abolition, because I think it is the right way forward in this new century, but if we are to have a House of Lords I will also support a fully elected House as I favour that over an all-appointed House. However, my colleagues and I will not support any option that gives control of places in the House of Lords to political parties. We have seen how badly wrong that system has gone over the past few years. There can be no place in our legislature for the party funders or the cronies. Cash for peerages should be a wake-up call about the danger of appointments. I hope that the House heeds that call.

Robert Wareing: In a debate in this place on 1 February 1999, I made it perfectly clear that I was in favour of unicameral legislature. If Members are interested, they can read columns 646 to 650 of the  Official Report of that date.
	Things have moved on since then, however, and now I am considering how I should vote on the options. I have agonised over the question. I am a natural democrat so I want everything to be elected. However, I need to consider the question of the primacy of this House—a term that has been used umpteen times in today's debate. I have news for right hon. and hon. Members: primacy has moved on. No longer does the House of Lords threaten the primacy of the House of Commons; the threat is from the overweening power of the Executive. That is what we should be debating. Unless we deal with that, discussion of the second Chamber is almost irrelevant.
	The fact of the matter is that at present the Executive increasingly control the House of Commons. We all know that after every Second Reading there is a programme motion. I have voted for most of the programme motions—after all, I cannot vote against my Government all the time, so I give them a little concession here and there. The fact is that Committee and Report stages in this House are tightly controlled. The House of Lords spends far more time considering legislation. How long do we debate a Bill on Report? The answer is a day, perhaps only for about six hours. At the end of that time, some amendments have not even been reached or debated, let alone voted on. They go to the House of Lords and, on occasions, Report can take as many as 11 days. That tells us an awful lot about what we need to do in the House of Commons.

Jack Straw: I fully accept that it is the job of this place as well as the other place to hold the Executive to account. Indeed, in my view, the better that is done here, the better it is for good governance. However, my hon. Friend is parodying the work that this House does in examining Bills. If he looks at the most recent report of the Modernisation Committee on how we have agreed to strengthen this House's role, he will find that it is simply untrue to say that the other place devotes significantly more time than this place to examination of Bills. Overall, this place devotes the more time.

Robert Wareing: I must say that I have my doubts about that. I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention, but I would want to see real evidence of what he says. When I am in the Tea Room, I look at the two monitors and see on the red one that the House of Lords is debating a Bill after five, six or seven days. When I know that that Bill was debated for only one day in this House, I think that it is a scandal.

Jack Straw: But the difference is that Bills in the other place are examined on the Floor of the House, whereas here they are examined in Committee. I an sure that my hon. Friend is not suggesting that all Bills should be examined on the Floor of the House—

Bernard Jenkin: They used to be.

Jack Straw: A very long time ago. It is far better for examination to take place in the new and much improved Public Bill Committees that we proposed.

Robert Wareing: That is not the only example of the overweening power of the Executive to which I refer. It applies to private Members' Bills. Last Friday, for example, we saw the disgraceful spectacle of a private Member's Bill being talked out. Why? Eventually, after a closure motion was successful, the Off-Road Vehicles (Registration) Bill was given a Second Reading, but why did a Minister spend one hour and 14 minutes discussing a Bill that the Government had not moved against on Second Reading? That is astonishing and it demeans the power of ordinary Members of Parliament. It should not be allowed to happen. I believe that we need to look very carefully at the power of the Executive—any Executive or any Government—over the House of Commons.
	I used to lecture in politics before I assumed my mantle here. I used to express doubts about the separation of powers, as we see it, in the United States, for example. There are a lot of disadvantages. However, I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that we should look further into the separation of powers.
	I notice that the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) tabled an amendment, which I do not think will be called, that relates to Ministers serving in the House of Lords. He does not want that to happen. The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) mentioned the same subject and I, too, do not believe that Ministers should sit in the House of Lords.
	I am going to be a bit revolutionary now: I do not think that Ministers should sit in the House of Commons either. I think that the Government should be accountable to the House of Commons, but I would prefer something like the French system, where the Government are accountable to the French National Assembly, but when a Member of Parliament becomes a Minister in the Government, he leaves the seat. I can tell anyone wondering what happens next exactly what does happen. In every election in France, the candidate stands and alongside that candidate is a suppliant or substitute who takes the place of any member who becomes a Minister. That would reduce the Executive's power of patronage in this House, too— [Interruption.] The Leader of the House has already had his chance and I did not interrupt him.

Simon Hughes: We should always look outside our own country and the hon. Gentleman is right in what he says. However, it seems to me that the fundamental weakness of the French system is that Ministers have no electors to whom they are directly accountable, so there is no one whom they have to see every week and deal with on a day-to-day basis. They therefore lose touch very quickly with what the electors are thinking. That is the weakness of the French system.

Robert Wareing: I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman says, but the fact remains that Ministers are still accountable to the representatives in the assembly, who are, in fact, elected at the same time. A substitute is there, as I said, to take the place of someone becoming a Minister. He comes from the constituency to which that Minister belonged. We should reflect very carefully on the merits of that system. We hear new Labour claims that it wants to reform this, that and the other, so let us have a look at that particular reform. Let us have more power in this legislature. We should not be satisfied simply with looking into the House of Lords.
	My nature tells me that I should go into the Lobby for a 100 per cent. elected House of Lords, but I am not too sure that that is what I am going to do tomorrow night. Quite frankly, I would rather have a second Chamber that is illegitimate so that in a few years' time when we can get support for a unicameral legislature, it will be easier—much easier—to get rid of the second Chamber. I do not want something that is defensible. It is indefensible—even without hereditary peers.
	One of the best ways to become a member of the House of Lords is to toe the line in this House and certainly not to worry about conscience—be a sycophant and you will soon get there. "Hear all, see all and say nowt", they say in Lancashire, which is one of the best prescriptions for getting into the House of Lords these days. Of course there are some distinguished people there. I am friendly with many members of the other Chamber. Nearly every tea time, I can be found in the Tea Room with three members of the House of Lords. I see that the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) is nodding; he has noticed. I get a lot of information from them about what is going on in the other Chamber.

Patrick Cormack: You might not in future.

Robert Wareing: The hon. Gentleman makes a sedentary quip; he is known for his sense of humour.
	We have got to be sure that we in the House of Commons really are the primary source of legislation and accountability of the Government. It is obvious to me that, at present, we are not. We have the Whips telling us what to do. Ten years ago, they were saying, "Vote against every privatisation measure"—and I did. The problem is that I have been doing so ever since 1997. I am now told to vote for privatising this, privatising that. Even the noble Lady Thatcher would baulk at some of the things that I have been asked to vote for.
	A concession may have been made about the timing and the type of elections. I am totally against the list system that is used for European elections. It is used by the central party machine. Anyone in the European Parliament who is slightly to the left of Genghis Khan was put near the bottom of the list. Labour MEPs who had served many years in the European Parliament lost their seat not because they were voted out, but because they were put at the bottom of the list. That is a scandal. The idea of having a list system gives me even more reason to oppose any change at this stage. I want to see a powerful unicameral legislature that can hold the Government to account and combat the patronage of the leaders of the Executive—any Executive, not just the present Government. That should be one of our missions when we go into the Division Lobby tomorrow night.

Patrick Cormack: It is a delight to follow the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing), who spoke, as always, with great candour and honesty. I cannot say that I agreed with everything he said, but, as I look around at the fairly empty Benches and count the number of Members on the Government Benches, I am bound to say that there is something rotten in the state of Parliament. It behoves us all to do something about that. In a way, it is putting the proverbial cart before the horse for us to be talking at inordinate length about the composition of the other place when this place is in need of such manifest reform. We need a Government who will have the courage to tackle the problems that face the House of Commons. Is it right that any constitutional Bill should pass without a two-thirds majority, for instance? We should be looking at things such as that in this place.
	Tonight, however, we are debating the House of Lords and it seems to me that there are only two—three if one counts the unicameral position—honest positions to take on the future of the House of Lords. One is that we move towards a written constitution, a redistribution of powers and two elected Houses. There is an impeccable logic in favour of that and I respect those who hold to that point of view. I disagree with them, but I respect them. I disagree with them not because of any fundamental error in their argument—because if I were starting with a new country and a blank sheet of paper, that system is probably what I would wish to devise—but because we are, in those famous and hackneyed words, where we are.
	In this country, we have an elected Chamber that enjoys both primacy and supremacy, to quote two words that have been bandied around in the debate, and a second Chamber that has a greater accumulation of expertise, experience and wisdom than any other Chamber anywhere in the world. That Chamber is an accident of history. It is not legitimate in the sense of being elected. But, because the Members of that House are not encumbered by constituency and other duties, it has the opportunity more critically to scrutinise and examine legislation that—the hon. Gentleman is quite right—often leaves this House in a less than tidy state. That is not a criticism of this Government, although the situation has got far worse under this Government with the automatic programme motion; it is a criticism of successive Governments over the past two or three decades—the time that I have been in the House and longer.
	We should accept tonight that we are being asked by the Leader of the House to pass a motion that would mean the abolition of the House of Lords as we know it and its replacement by a different sort of second Chamber. The Leader of the House is not advocating a wholly elected second Chamber. As I have said, supporting a wholly elected second Chamber is a position that I respect. I am not seeking to score cheap points, but it was noticeable that on neither side were the speeches of the Leader of the House or the shadow Leader of the House accepted with any degree of acclamation in what was at the time a fairly full House.
	The Leader of the House advocates a hybrid House. That is the worst of all worlds. I accept as irrefutable the logic advanced in a short but persuasive speech by the Father of the House. The point was taken up by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso). Arguing from different points of view, they both said that if we once had a substantial elected element, inexorably we would move towards a fully elected second Chamber. We would move towards it not in the way that I would accept as respectable, but in a way that would, like Topsy, grow.
	We have to look at some of the points that have been made in today's debate. First, there is the point about the settled constitutional position and the report on the conventions. There is no settled constitutional position. If we move towards a substantially elected second Chamber, all the conventions will be up for grabs. Even the Parliament Act itself, which applies to the House of Lords, not to a differently constituted second Chamber, would be open to question. We would inevitably be building into our system a move towards constitutional gridlock, at a time when we have not properly sorted out our priorities in a way that enables us to hold the Executive truly and properly to account.
	People talk about one party never having a majority in the second Chamber, but if we have a Chamber that is 50 per cent. elected, and we move on from there, how can we bind the electorate to ensure that they will not give a majority to a particular party? How can one, in any sense, argue that the electorate will inevitably return to Parliament a large number of independents? That proposition was advanced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May). The electorate will elect whom they want to elect.
	If we are going to have the elections on the day of the European elections, or the Scottish and Welsh elections, as has been suggested, they will probably come mid-way through a Parliament and could certainly upset the constitutional balance of Parliament. We are talking about something that we would not have planned for if we sat down and drew up a written constitution; it would be something that we drifted into, without proper thought for the sort of people who would sit in the second Chamber. If we are going to try to devise a Chamber that has no more powers than exist at the moment, it could be asked whether that would attract that right calibre of man and woman. In that context, if the second Chamber used the powers that it currently has but, by self-imposed restraint and convention, does not use, that in itself would be a prescription for clash after clash with this Chamber.
	I believe that the proposition advanced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead has a fundamentally flawed logic. I am incredulous that the Conservative party—perhaps, initially, for opportunistic reasons, because it understandably wanted to embarrass the Government—should have come up four years ago with this crackpot 80:20 idea. The idea is not based on any true parliamentary logic. I say to hon. Members on both sides of the House: let us reform the existing House of Lords and do away with the absurd anomaly of the ridiculous by-elections.

Oliver Heald: Cannot my hon. Friend see that we in this House should cherish democracy? If we are to do away with the patronage that has brought the House and the other place into disrepute over recent months, we have to do something. Electing 80 per cent. of Members and having 20 per cent. who were not party political would achieve that.

Patrick Cormack: That is the sort of knee-jerk reaction that led to the abolition of the Greater London council, against which I voted, and then landed us with something far worse. We would be in danger of landing ourselves with something far worse here, I say to my hon. Friend, with whom I normally agree and whom I greatly respect and admire. We have to be extremely careful about what we are embarking on tonight.
	Our party is advancing a proposition that is inimical to its true roots and traditions. However, there are Members in all parties—I have worked in close co-operation with Members of both this House and the other place over the past four years—who believe in the basic stability of the British constitution and want an effective Parliament. They believe that many things can be done to improve this House and the relationship between the two Houses, but think, for the moment at least, that, in our second Chamber, we have a House of probity—I do not accept the aspersions that have just been cast, because the possible antics of one or two do not invalidate the actions of the many—a House that works, a House that is honourable and a House that carries out with due diligence duties that we are not always able to do. We must serve the interests of our constituents. I yield to no one as a democrat—I am fighting a certain democratic battle at the moment—and I believe that we would have a much more balanced constitution if we were to improve what we have got, rather than sweeping it away and bringing in an ill-devised scheme in its place.

Fiona Mactaggart: I want to focus on a simple theme. To borrow the language of the late Robin Cook, democracy is not just a process, but a value. It is a value that needs nurturing, and that is ignored at our peril. I am shocked by the fact that the turnout in the 2001 election was the lowest since 1918 and that in the 2005 election, when the present Government were elected, the lowest proportion of the electorate voted for the Government in any election ever. We have a duty to refresh, redesign and renew our democracy, rather than saying that the future of our country, our laws and the way in which our Government are held to account should be decided by people who think that they know best—frankly, that is what a system of appointment tends to achieve.
	When we consider public appointments, the extent to which certificates and management experience are valued over judgment, common sense, nous and an experience of using public services is quite striking. I am very concerned about many aspects of the situation. People have spoken a lot about the expertise of the other place, but one of the things that I value about hon. Members is the different life experience that those people who have fought elections bring to this job. From miners to personal injury lawyers, there is a wide range of experience. Many Members of this House are as expert in their fields as the much-vaunted experts in another place. The claim that we require appointment to achieve expertise is not well stated.
	I am worried that the increasing use of Nolan-type appointment procedures for public bodies is diminishing the participation of citizens and political parties in the process. A person applying for a public appointment must admit to membership of a political party, just after admitting to any convictions. The number of people admitting to membership of a political party who have received a public appointment has been going down year on year because of that fact. Being a member of a political party is something of which we should feel proud. It was a long time before I joined a political party, because I was right 100 per cent. of the time, and the Labour party was right only most of the time, and that is the story of this debate. The Leader of the House is absolutely right that in debates on reform, we have consistently said that we wanted an answer that was 100 per cent. right; we want the perfect answer, and we have made the perfect the enemy of the good.
	I am quite prepared to announce that I will vote for anything from 50 per cent. upwards. I think that 50 per cent. is utter nonsense, but I want the matter settled. I was shocked to hear the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), who spoke for the Liberal Democrats, redefine "predominantly" in the way that he did. His argument was, "Because I want to keep my ball perfect, I'm not going to vote for an arrangement that will get a result." I beg him to speak to his colleagues and think again before the vote tomorrow, because we have to get a result this time.
	I challenge the assumption, which has been a running theme of this debate, that elections would encourage the other place to challenge the House of Commons. Let us consider what has in the past led the other place to challenge this place. It has challenged the Commons when it disagrees with us. We should be completely clear about the occasions when the other House has voted against the Commons. It is obvious that when this House is run by Labour, the other place votes against us, and when the House of Commons is run by the Conservative party, it does not. The data are underpinned in every way by every piece of research that I could get from the Library.
	The Government with the largest number of defeats by the Lords was the 1974 to 1979 Labour Government, which had 343 defeats. The lowest number of defeats for a Labour Government was 108; that was immediately after the 1997 elections. I think that the other place felt that it would be a bit embarrassing to defeat us too much after that landslide, so it lay low. To claim that the increased number of defeats of the Labour Government since then reflects the fact that Members of the other place feel more legitimate is absolute nonsense. It has nothing to do with that; it is to do with the fact that the Lords are getting back into their old habits, and nothing else.

Simon Hughes: I have no doubt that the hon. Lady is right about her statistics, but she ignores the central point, which is that it is only in the past 10 years that the House of Lords has been reformed so that there is no party majority. In the old days, there was a big Tory majority, so Labour Governments had a harder time, but that is not the position now, and everybody agrees, as far as is possible, that there will never again be a single-party majority in the Lords.

Fiona Mactaggart: There is not the kind of majority that there used to be, but there is still a predominance that does not reflect the situation in the country, as it was at the last election. Let us consider the habits of the other place when the Conservatives are in government. The largest number of defeats of a Conservative Government by the House of Lords took place in the dog days of the Thatcher Government, when there were 82 in total in a Parliament. The fewest was 26 in the 1970 to 1974 Parliament. There is no evidence to support the suggestion that elections by themselves somehow encourage the other place to disagree.
	In addition, the suggestion that elections will automatically result in the other place achieving equivalence with the House of Commons is refuted by the experiences of other countries. The excellent work of Dr. Meg Russell makes it quite clear that in many countries with a wholly or predominantly elected second Chamber, the second Chamber is effectively subordinate to the main Chamber. It is true that most of those countries have written constitutions, and, as we all know, Britain is an exception in that regard, so there are not many places that have constitutional arrangements that we can compare with ours. So far, we have managed to achieve the things that countries with written constitutions have achieved, and I see no reason why we should not do so in relation to reform.
	I was glad to hear the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). Her proposition that we elect people in a different way to represent what I called in an article that I wrote in 1999 "constituencies of the mind" has a great deal of merit. I do not believe that the only constituencies around which we organise our lives are those on the ground. Our relationships and our attitudes are important factors and, for the first time, new technology makes it possible to envisage alternatives to geographical constituencies. There is an urgent need to decide the principal matter, but I supported the initial proposal from my right hon. Friend Leader of the House for a preferential voting system. It did not survive our great traditions in the House, but it is peculiar, to say the least, that the party that argued for such a system and that would presumably have included proportions such as 50 and 60 per cent., however unsatisfactory, on the ballot paper, is not prepared to vote for those options as well as its preferred options tomorrow. I shall do so, even though I do not like them any more than the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), because we cannot allow the problem to last for a century. In two years, a century will have passed since it arose, and that is not acceptable.
	People often ask me to speak about this subject. If feels as though I am on a seesaw with the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack), because we often face one another as opponents. I soon run out of things to say—I am glad that there is a time limit on speeches in this debate—because I have only one argument. The people of this country are the best people to decide who should make its laws and who should hold the Government to account. There is no better authority than the people of this country, and if we start to undermine their authority and suggest that there are alternatives to it, we do not deserve the power that they give us in Parliament. We have a responsibility to make a decision, and to make a democratic second Chamber. I would prefer it to be wholly elected, but I will tolerate a Chamber that is largely elected, mostly elected or even 50 per cent. elected, because that is the way to come to a solution.

Andrew George: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart). I missed her earlier sedentary intervention, and she did not repeat it in her speech. She demonstrated that everyone, whatever their perspective, can get into contortions and adopt tortured logic to defend their position. She concluded that the people are in the best position to determine the resolution of such issues, and she made a cry for democracy to speak out. I entirely agree, but as I shall explain, we are asking the wrong question. I am not hectored in the streets by constituents who want to know what I am going to do about Lords reform. They do want to know, however, what we can do as their elected representatives to hold the Government to account. That is a different question and, as we are starting from a different position, reform of the second Chamber, which must be dealt with at some point, is a long way down the list. I fear that the Government will lead us a merry dance today and tomorrow. We are looking at an entirely subordinate issue, as they have diverted us from the primary issue with which the Chamber must deal.
	I speak in the debate with some caution and trepidation because I take a different view from those on my Front Bench. It is not that I am unconvinced by my hon. Friend the Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), or that I cannot be convinced, but I am not convinced yet, because I do not believe we have reached the point where the issues before us need to be decided. We are required to take subordinate decisions before the primary decision has been taken, which is illogical.
	The problem is that this "cart before the horse" approach, the obsession with process rather than product, the infatuation with means rather than end, and the zealotry behind the belief that we should resolve how people get into the second Chamber before we decide what they are there to do, leapfrog the logical decision that we would otherwise have taken, had the Government not sent us down the route of resolving the subordinate issues before the primary one is addressed.
	The primary issue that we should deal with was addressed by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) in his contribution—he is no longer in his place. We should discuss how we improve the effectiveness of parliamentary scrutiny and revision. That is what we want the second Chamber to do, and we feel that we need to strengthen that because we are incapable of doing it ourselves. If we were able to do the job ourselves, we would not worry quite so much about the functions and composition of the second Chamber and its ability to save our bacon.
	I am not making an argument for a unicameral system. It would not be appropriate to deal with manifold issues of such weight and gravity as we deal with. I will not vote for it because I believe that a bicameral system is required. We need to start by looking at ourselves. This Chamber should be more accountable than it is. As the House would expect, I take the opportunity to argue that we should have a more representative Chamber, which would inevitably lead to more consensus and compromise. Ministers should respect and fear this place, rather than treating it with disdain, as they seem to do these days.
	When we have dealt with the matter of what we do in the primary Chamber, we can move on to discuss what we want a second Chamber to do. If we want a second Chamber, as I believe we do, it is not to compete with what we do, but to complement it and add to it. That debate should be held in this place and another place before we consider and decide how best that place is to be composed. That is why I am angry that we have been led by the nose by the Government into lengthy debates about the subordinate issue of the composition of the second Chamber, whereas we should be addressing issues of effective scrutiny, revision and holding the Executive to account. That is not improved by the changes discussed in the White Paper.
	We should ask ourselves how we can ensure that the second Chamber can provide scrutiny, revision and sober second thought. An element of democracy may well be relevant to such a Chamber. However, I would need to be convinced that we had properly addressed the issues as regards the tension between the primacy of this Chamber and the legitimacy of Members of the second Chamber, and the need for that Chamber to have representatives who complement the skills of this Chamber in being able to engage in sober second thought. Earlier, I asked the Leader of the House whether, in the words of the White Paper, the
	"current conventions are the right ones for a reformed house...certainly early in its life".
	The implication is that the current conventions will remain, but we do not know whether they will be challenged, as the primacy of this House is likely to be challenged—that is one of the tensions in the debate—if the second Chamber is largely or wholly elected.
	We do not know what would be the nature of the elections. As party tribalists, we are all aware of the inevitability of how candidates would emerge, particularly in regional list systems. As a Cornishman representing Cornwall, I would say that the Government's regions were created on the basis of bureaucratic convenience, as there is no community of interest in the south-west region. Of the MEPs representing the south-west, the nearest to my constituency lives about 150 miles away. It would not necessarily be in my area's best interests to have representatives in a second Chamber who claim to represent Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly but live in Swindon, Bournemouth, Winchester, or wherever.
	I am not sure that the process would result in people with strong revisionary skills or those capable of independent thought—talents that are clearly needed in the second Chamber. I imagine that the election literature would not be a thoughtful exposition of the need for sober second thought and revisonary skills, but would comprise the usual party political soundbites, attacks on Opposition leaders and claims of loyalty or defiance as regards the Government of the day.
	I have many concerns about how the debate has been handled, particularly the fact that we are taking it the wrong way round. If we had put the horse before the cart, many Members who have already determined that they will vote one way or another for a Chamber of the composition of their choice might have taken a different view.

Andrew Love: I start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who, sadly, is no longer in his place, on the way in which he introduced the debate and took so many interventions. I also congratulate him on the energy that he has shown in bringing the matter back to the House so early on in this Parliament. I congratulate him primarily on admitting that he has had a rethink and come to a conclusion. I am pleased that he has done that and glad that there are others—I have it on good authority—who will do the same, although we need more if we are to get a resounding majority for change.
	Let me make a plea, particularly to Members who do not want any change. Parliament has failed in the past—in 1949, in 1968, and most recently in 2003. On each occasion, there was stalemate and we were not able to take matters forward. Nevertheless, recognising that historical experience, we can all say that the status quo is unsustainable and that this issue will not go away. Democracy is beating at the door of the Houses of Parliament and will not be satisfied with no change.
	We must avoid the fiasco of 2003 and what Robin Cook described as a legislative train wreck. Parliament must show a will, and it can do that tomorrow when we vote. I believe that we should make the second Chamber more accountable. As an Opposition Member said, those who make the laws of the land should have a mandate from the people to do so. That is a simple principle.
	The second Chamber should be legitimate. No one has spoken a great deal about public opinion, but it has been consistent over the years. As Conservative Members will tell us, a poll conducted in the past few days confirmed again that the electorate would like a wholly or mainly elected second Chamber.
	The House of Lords needs to be representative. Hon. Members have spoken of elderly men in the other place, the lack of ethnic minorities and its domination by people from the south-east. We need to change that to make it reflect our society more.
	The first question that I asked myself was whether our system should be bicameral. My emphatic answer is yes, but only on the basis of the primacy of the House of Commons. I am not sure why there has been to-ing and fro-ing about the matter because there is more consensus about it than any other issue.
	The House of Lords should reflect the diversity of the United Kingdom—its nations, regions and new communities. There is a distinct lack of women and—dare I say it—working people, who remain greatly under-represented, in the other place. Of course, it should not be a mirror image of the House of Commons. I shall revert to that point.
	I reject the idea of a fully appointed Chamber, which would simply mean the status quo. Those who argue for that option claim that, otherwise, it would interfere with the House of Commons. However, we are considering reform of the House of Lords, not the House of Commons.
	It is also argued that we already have an effective House of Lords, which revises legislation. However, if we consider the past few years, Government amendments account for 90 to 95 per cent. of those made in the House of Lords. They are made on the whim of the Whips. The other place is an effective second Chamber in which the Government can play around with legislation.
	In the case of an appointed second Chamber, how would we get rid of the hereditaries? We have recently experienced the abomination of an election for a vacant place for the hereditaries. We need to get rid of them, and I believe that there is consensus about that.
	I am worried about the appointments commission. The fiasco of the people's peers has been mentioned. An appointments commission appoints people who reflect its members and does not fulfil the need to reflect society. I have a specific problem with the criteria for appointments. It has been suggested that they will override political nomination, which is currently the only link with democratic accountability. If the commission is set up, there will be no accountability.
	Let me be clear: I favour 100 per cent. election for reasons of legitimacy, accountability and gaining the support of the electorate, who understand and trust democracy. It is important that they give their overwhelming backing to the reform. However, given the speeches that we have heard today—I suspect that they reflect the views of Parliament—I recognise that the proposal for 100 per cent. election is unlikely to succeed. I shall therefore vote for a predominantly elected second Chamber. Let me repeat the plea that has come from all parties and all quarters, with reference to Voltaire: the best should not be the enemy of the good. I emphasise that especially to Liberal Democrat colleagues. I was saddened at the beginning of the debate when it appeared that the party's formal position is to support only 80 per cent. or more election. That does not reflect a recognition of the realities in the Chamber. I hope that Liberal Democrat Members will think clearly about the need to ensure a good result tomorrow night.
	Of course, the proposal will result in a hybrid House. Will it change the balance between the two Houses? Let me reject all the doomsday scenarios, which the Father of the House first raised and which Members on both sides of the House have discussed. Of course, the balance will be changed over time, but the concerns expressed can be addressed. The conventions that exist between the two Houses have been drawn up and published: they are known and transparent, and at this point in time are agreed between the two Houses.
	The Leader of the House suggested that we have a debate about the appropriateness of the conventions; we could go further and think about legislating in relation to those conventions. If we consider the international experience, however, we will see that on many occasions there is no direct relationship between the so-called democratic legitimacy of a second chamber and the powers that it holds. Often, second chambers have a great deal of democracy with few powers; sometimes, they have a lot of powers with little democracy. We should be reassured that we can create the arrangements between the two Houses that are necessary to ensure that the primacy of the House of Commons continues to be recognised.
	I have a particular concern, which other Members have reflected, about the recommendation that elected Members of the second Chamber should serve for one term of 15 years. I agree with those who produced the 2005 report, who are represented by the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), that a shorter term of 12 years might be more appropriate. My primary concern, however, is the lack of accountability: what happens after the person is elected? They cannot be re-elected, so they cannot be held accountable to the second Chamber or to their so-called electorate. That would undermine the legitimacy of the second Chamber.
	The issue will not go away. Tomorrow evening, we have the opportunity to make the change that will take the Houses of Parliament, and particularly the second Chamber, into the 21st century. That can be achieved only if we have a substantially elected second Chamber, and I commend that to the House.

Bernard Jenkin: The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) mentioned public opinion, but I am not sure that there is a public clamour for a debate on this issue. Therefore, I am not sure that the large numbers of right hon. and hon. Members in the Chamber are reflecting public opinion by having this debate.
	In 2003, I voted in favour of every option on the Order Paper calling for some or all of the peers to be elected. I wanted to speak in this evening's debate because, rather like the Leader of the House—I am flattered to find myself in such august company—I have completely changed my mind.
	The best reason for leaving the upper House largely as it is, is that it serves its purpose as a revising Chamber better than any alternative that we can envisage. It works, and it has patently worked better since 1999. It revises with a measured deference to the elected Chamber, with a thoroughness that we elected politicians seldom demonstrate, with a breadth of expertise that we cannot pretend to emulate, and with a legitimacy that can only exist apart from the daily thrust of party politics. Those qualities would be lost were the peers elected.
	Moreover, before we substantially alter the composition of the upper House, we should, as many other Members have said, discuss what it should do. That point was reflected in the intervention of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) and the speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh). If we want to challenge the authority of this House, we should settle that first. It is not right to let it simply flow from any decision that we make about composition. We are already paying the price for a programme of disjointed constitutional reforms in isolation, such as Scottish devolution and the Human Rights Act, without regard to their wider consequences.
	The main argument for elected peers that we keep hearing is an argument that I think we should call "democracy for its own sake". I heard what was said by the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) about the virtues of accountable democracy, but that is delivered through this House; the other House does not need to be similarly democratic in order to fulfil its functions.
	The implication of the "democracy for its own sake" argument is that an appointed upper House is somehow incompatible with what the White Paper rather fetchingly calls "a modern democracy". In an excellent paper entitled "A House Built of Straw", Lord Norton of Louth points out that the White Paper offers no definition of democracy, or any distinction between what is democracy and what is a modern democracy. Quite why "modern"—according to the Leader of the House—means 50 per cent. elected rather than 100 per cent. elected, or 80 per cent. elected as advocated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), is not explained.
	I believe that a mixed mandate for the upper House reflects mixed motives, and would be the worst option. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack). Either we want a revising Chamber or we want a senate and all that flows from it, but we must make up our minds. If we vote for an elected element, we will end up with senators who claim a democratic mandate. If such senators have single terms once elected, they will hardly be more accountable. Who can foretell how they will behave? I have a vision of not so much a revising Chamber as a rogue Chamber.
	In the White Paper the Leader of the House says:
	"The legitimacy and authority of the second chamber continue to be called into question."
	By whom? By a few Members of this House?

Helen Goodman: By the public.

Bernard Jenkin: I do not accept that. Polls upon polls have shown the public to believe that the upper House is doing a far better job than this House. It has far better poll ratings than our House. If people do not want an elected senate, "democracy for its own sake" becomes rather an unconvincing argument.
	I refer to polls merely to demonstrate the fact that there are polls and polls. I am confident that if any proposal for electing peers were to be decided by a referendum, the more the voters thought about it, the more likely they would be to vote against it. Everyone thought that the Australians would vote against the monarchy, until they considered the alternatives. The Government thought that the north-east would vote for an elected assembly, until the people of the north-east counted the cost of more elections and more elected politicians. There is no public clamour for this change.
	The most superficially alluring reason for supporting elections is to rebalance the constitution. People say that the House of Commons is too powerful, and needs a more powerful elected upper House to hold it in check. I am impressed by the number of Members here who have raised that question, but it is the Executive who have gained far too much power, not this House.
	The glorious revolution of 1688 represented a settlement between the Crown and Parliament designed to ensure that Parliament controlled the law, that the judges would be impartial and that the machinery of government would be subject to the law. That arrangement has been subverted. Today's Prime Minister is immeasurably more powerful than the monarchy that was overthrown by Parliament in the civil war. Charles I never exercised a fraction of the power over Supply and legislation that is enjoyed by modern Prime Ministers. Even when Lord Hailsham coined the phrase "elective dictatorship", he can never have imagined a House of Commons as cowed by the Executive as the House of Commons today.
	The real problem is the Executive's grip on the Commons timetable, under which every Bill in this House is subject to a guillotine. It will be interesting to see whether that applies to this Bill, should it actually begin its progress. That grip is reinforced by whipping on almost every matter, by the promise of high office in return for obedience—an interest that we do not have to include in the Register of Members' Interests—and by the threat of deselection under the terms now applied by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. As has been pointed out, we are little more than an electoral college for the office of Prime Minister. Whatever happened to the ideal that we should sit here in accordance with the Burkean tradition as representatives of our constituents exercising our judgment, rather than as delegates of centralised political parties? Ironically, if we implement a system for elections to the upper House, we will be implementing the same vice-like control of party over entry into that upper House. An appointed House can deal with that only through a proper appointments commission, and not by party-driven elections.

John Bercow: How does my hon. Friend suppose that the point that he has just made is consistent with the point about which he was complaining a few moments ago, namely that if someone served for a long but non-renewable term, that person would not be accountable to the electorate—or, indeed, apparently to anyone else?

Bernard Jenkin: I do not think for a minute that that is the system that we will finish with in the long term. There might be that intention at the start, and it might even reach the statute book for a period, but if we start down the track towards having an elected House we will finish up with a fully fledged Senate, with all that flows from that.
	Who could possibly argue that embroiling the upper House in the same mind-numbing party antics as we engage in so much in this Chamber will increase the authority and legitimacy of that House? Parliament is already held in enough contempt. This will accelerate the process. Election turnouts for these elections are likely to be the same as for elections to local government or, even worse, the same as for the European Parliament—which is pitiable.
	If we want to recover respect for Parliament, we in this House need to improve what we do. That can be achieved only by recovering our independence from the Executive and initiating a process of separation between the Executive and this House. The payroll should be limited and we should consider whether some Ministers should be recruited from outside Parliament, rather than from within it. Our timetable should no longer be under the control of Government, and we should consider how it could be determined by a Committee elected by this House, rather than, as now, handed down by the Executive. Those two measures would do far more to address the imbalance in our modern constitution than any change to the composition of the other place.
	I urge the House to vote to retain our respected revising Chamber as primarily an appointed House. If we vote for an elected House, let there be a referendum. After all, this would be a far greater change than a mere regional assembly or elected mayor, and those who have voted for referendums on those matters would be honour-bound to vote for a referendum on this issue.
	I shall not be the least embarrassed if this occasion turns out to be another so-called train wreck. That will simply reflect that there is no consensus for reform, which is a very good reason not to reform at all. It should be hard to change our constitution, and I am glad that it is. I shall vote for the maintenance of our bicameral Parliament but for the other place to become wholly appointed. My support for that proposition in respect of any Bill that might be introduced will depend on the means for appointment. Unless one of the propositions for reform is approved I will vote to retain the remaining hereditary element, in line with the assurance given by the Government—by the Lord Chancellor—back in 1999 that that should go only when stage 2 "has taken place." With no stage 2, the remaining hereditaries should remain, in line with the Government's assurance. I regret that I cannot support the amendment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) because that would imply that I support the principle of elected peers, which I hope that I have explained I do not.

John Bercow: My starting point is that unicameralism equals monopoly and that monopoly spawns arrogance. The antidote to that monopoly and arrogance is a legitimate, credible, self-confident, and thereby effective, second Chamber. I listened with interest and respect to argument enunciated once again by the right hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) in favour of abolition of the House of Lords. I do not agree with that view. At this stage of our constitutional arrangements, it is essential that we retain, strengthen, embolden and respect a second Chamber and derive very much more from it.
	That second Chamber is incredibly important and if we are to have it, we have to decide the fundamental question. Do we preserve a wholly appointed Chamber or go for a variant on the theme of election and democracy? My strong, passionate and insistent preference is for a predominantly elected—or better still, wholly elected—second Chamber. I simply do not buy the argument that we can continue with the status quo. I acknowledge the frequency with which one hears the argument invoked that the House of Lords is doing a thoroughly good job. I said earlier in an intervention on the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) that although some peers work exceptionally hard and frequently demonstrate great expertise, the most vociferous voices in support of the excellence of the existing House of Lords are existing Members of the House of Lords. On the principle that no one should be judge in his own cause, we should not attach much weight to that kind of special pleading.
	My view is that we have to move very much in favour of election, and in holding that view I immediately confront the argument that if we do so, we will somehow face the threat of a rival mandate. That is a fundamentally nervous, under-confident and grievously and unnecessarily apprehensive position for this House to take. Why should there be that problem? It is said that the primacy of this Chamber is based on, derived from and exclusively dependent on the fact only of our being the elected House. I do not agree with that. There are all sorts of bases of the primacy of this House, and that argument ought to be strongly and repeatedly asserted. The reality is that the Commons is the source of the Government of this country. The Commons is the body that controls Supply. The Commons is the organisation that exclusively has the power to tax and to spend. The Commons is the body that has the final say on legislation. The Commons decides both its own powers and those of the other House. The notion that, simply because we entertain and then go for reform, we will somehow immediately resile from, repudiate or put at risk that essential pre-eminence is fundamentally wrong.
	The truth is that people who argue that position, whether they know it or not, are really arguing against significant change of any kind, and they are probably for the most part—with the notable exception of my hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin)—people who have always been of that position. We can retain primacy, and we can and should assert distinctiveness and separateness. One manifestly effective way in which to do so would be to say, "We will not have Ministers as Members of the House of Lords. They can appear before, but they shall not sit in, that second Chamber." That would serve to reinforce and underline the reality that the second Chamber is performing a function complementary to, but not duplicatory of, the House of Commons.

Bernard Jenkin: I put it to my hon. Friend that the fact that Ministers sit in the House of Lords and could sit in it if it were elected is not the problem. The problem is that there are too many Ministers—and too many people in this House who hope to be Ministers—sitting in this House. My hon. Friend is addressing the wrong problem if he wants to strengthen Parliament's relationship with the Executive.

John Bercow: The problem that underlies my hon. Friend's thesis is that he is not prepared to consider the possibility that there might be several sources of our existing weakness and, therefore, a multifaceted solution. I respect the fact that my hon. Friend has changed his mind. Goodness knows, as right hon. and hon. Members will know, I have on several occasions changed my mind on issues, and I do not regard that as an admission of weakness. I certainly do not castigate my hon. Friend, but he is guilty of the zeal of the convert. He now subscribes to the view that there is a panacea for dealing with the ills of the inadequacy of representation, the democratic deficit or the excessively domineering style or capacity of the Executive.
	Yes, we should reform this House, and I do not believe for one moment that reform of the Lords and reform of the Commons are mutually exclusive and that never the twain shall meet—far from it. It is my passionate conviction, which I put to the Leader of the House, who is one of the best Leaders of the House in recent times, that a good House of Lords reform Bill should very soon be followed by a good House of Commons reform Bill to boot. Let us take the process seriously and respect the fact that each House needs to change, albeit probably in somewhat different ways.

Patrick Cormack: As always, my hon. Friend makes a passionate, persuasive and eloquent speech. He is a man of real logic, so I ask him whether it is really sensible to impose a change on the other place before we have thought through the changes that we should introduce for this place.

John Bercow: I do not think that there is a problem with that. I would like to have had further and better reform of this place at an earlier stage, but the reforms that we envisage as necessary for the Lords remain necessary and could act as an inspirational or competitive spur to this House to do what is necessary in respect of its own proceedings.
	There is an unreal and unjustified concern about the form of elections that might take place. Whatever one opts for, there will be people who object. My own view is that it would be much better to proceed with the elections to the revised second Chamber through open, transparent processes that offer the electorate more choice. I am also persuaded that there is a strong imperative for some sort of proportionality in the system, given that the normal objection that my hon. Friends and I make to proportional representation applies in the context of the Chamber from which the Government are drawn and on which they depend for their majority. The same argument does not apply to a second Chamber with palpably and permanently different functions.
	If we want more independence and more of a mix of representation in the second Chamber, we should have a different electoral system. We should also say, categorically, that we want a smaller second Chamber. There may be scope for reducing the size of this institution, but whatever size the second Chamber ends up, it should be smaller than at present.
	I wish to make two final points that are relevant to the culture of the revised second Chamber. I said earlier that I was quizzical—and at best, uncertain—about amendment (c), in the name of my right hon. Friends the Members for Witney (Mr. Cameron) and for Maidenhead (Mrs. May), which is also supported by several Liberal Democrats. The time for the hereditaries to sit in the second Chamber has passed and they should leave sooner rather than later. The notion that the whole process might take 10, 12 or 15 years is incredible and unsustainable and it is not a notion that I can support. I say that as someone who respects the contribution that those individuals have made. They have worked hard and shown their expertise and they are genuinely dedicated and loyal in the service of the other place, but they cannot continue to be present there for any reasonable period. That is not on. The notion that they can be used as a bargaining chip in an elaborate game is neither credible nor modern politics. We have to judge the issue on its merits, intellectually and ethically. If we do so, we will recognise that the hereditary peers cannot be allowed to stay for long. By all means let us be generous with them, give them pay-offs, show our thanks and be appreciative, but they cannot continue.
	My final point has been touched on intermittently in the debate by a couple of colleagues. In 2007, there is no case to be made for reserved, ex officio, guaranteed religious representation in the second Chamber. The argument simply does not hold water. The Leader of the House proposes keeping a reduced number of bishops, but that would require us, in all conscience, decency and equity, to incorporate a good many other people who represent the other faiths in this country. It has been calculated that of the order of 77 such people would have to be included.
	I suppose that one could argue that all the faiths should be accommodated, or none of them. The notion that there should be a privileged position for a small number of bishops in a decreasingly religious country simply will not wash. Again, those people should be thanked, appreciated and respected, but they should be told, "You might be part of an appointed element on merit, but ex officio, guaranteed representation is for the birds." We need a genuine, effective and committed reform of the House of Lords, and it should happen without significant delay.
	I will not let the best be the enemy of the good. Like the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), I will vote for 100, 80, or 60 per cent. I will even vote for 50 per cent., because we must make progress.

David Howarth: I have come to a conclusion that is similar to that of the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow); it is not quite the same. I believe that the upper House has to be 100 per cent. elected, and my reasons are very similar to those given by the right hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg) and the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd).
	The central point is that the primacy of the House of Commons comes down to its power to make and break Governments, and to decide who the Government shall be. However, that source of strength is also its source of weakness. The Government depend for their existence on the confidence of the Commons, but that very fact renders the Commons not very good at scrutinising legislation. That job needs a second Chamber.
	Several hon. Members have talked about the power of the House of Commons over Supply. I am a new Member of the House, but I am struck by how weak our power over Supply has become. Formerly, the House was able to control expenditure, but that power has been reduced to a series of formal debates. Decisions about where money should or not be spent are at the heart of policy, but the House cannot now debate different spending plans. There is no way that we can debate in this Chamber, as council chambers can up and down the country, what the Government want to spend taxpayers' money on as opposed to the Opposition parties. That is the reality of the situation of Supply, rather than the form.
	We need a second Chamber to carry out those tasks, but it has been argued that this Chamber can be reformed to produce similar results. Reforms are necessary, but they will never be enough. The Government of the day depend for their existence on the confidence of the House, so the power of the Whips will always be with us. That power will always be necessary to ensure that the House is run in the way that it has to be in order that its functions are carried out. As a result, we will never be able to hold the Government to account to the extent that a fully independent House of Commons could.
	The issue in the end comes down to why we want a second Chamber in the first place. While the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) was speaking about the 17th century, it occurred to me that, as the successor to Oliver Cromwell as the Member for Cambridge, I might have something to say about that. This House in 1649 passed a resolution:
	"That the House of Peers is useless and dangerous and ought to be abolished",
	but I have come to the conclusion that we should not follow through on that 1649 resolution and that a second Chamber is necessary. The big question for me is why.
	Why is a second Chamber necessary? The argument in the White Paper, which my hon. Friend the Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) repeated, was simply to do with the size and complexity of the task that faces us. I am afraid that I am not quite convinced by that argument. It would imply, for example, that we should look for a second Chamber for the European Parliament—a proposition that would chill the blood of most hon. Members and most citizens of the European Union.
	The real reasons why we need a second Chamber come down to two. One is the need for revision and the other is the need for a political check and balance. I have to say that the role of a revising Chamber by itself is not quite enough, if by "revising Chamber" one means a Chamber of suggestions, which can improve legislation but without challenging the underlying policy. That strikes me as a council of state function, and if we want the Chamber to have such a function and be made up of experts, the best way to deal with that is the way the French do it. They have competitive examinations to decide who should sit in that body. It is a purely expert function, not the sort of function that the House of Lords has been carrying out.
	The present structure of the House of Lords—a Chamber based on patronage—does not seem to me to be one that can carry out such a function very well. The expertise in the House of Lords is patchy. I sat on the Committee that considered the Companies Bill. It struck me that, although there are many renowned lawyers and business people in the House of Lords, the great experts in company law in this country—with one exception, who studied company law and researched it with great distinction until the 1960s—do not sit in the House of Lords. If we want a Chamber based on expertise, we have to look elsewhere for the experts.
	The fundamental question is: why those experts, not other experts? Why do we have the experts in the House of Lords whom we have? The answer to that is patronage rather than inherent ability.

Tom Levitt: Why does the hon. Gentleman assume that the appointed Chamber has to be based on some sort of centralised patronage? Why could we not have employers, trade unions, religious bodies, the professions, students and so on each electing their own Members to the second Chamber, thereby ensuring diversity and expertise, and changing the franchise so that the second Chamber is so different from this place that it will not be a threat?

David Howarth: The hon. Gentleman is suggesting an election system, but with functional rather than geographical constituencies. The big question then is how we make sure that we do not leave people out. A lot of the population would be covered by such constituencies, but not people who do not fit into those particular groups. The employment structure of the country is changing rapidly, so it is difficult to define what those occupational groups would be. In the end, the easiest way to run a democracy is on a geographical basis.
	I want to come to the fundamental reason why we should have a second Chamber. It is to be a political check and balance, not just to represent regional and local interests, although the point about the present second Chamber being fundamentally a London-based Chamber has been made several times and very well. The second Chamber should be a check in a legislative process that often operates far too quickly. We legislate at great speed. In the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 and various terrorism Bills we have approached a knee-jerk democracy. The problem with that is that the population of the country needs time to react.
	If we are to have any public influence on the political system, the public need time. Most people most of the time pay little attention to politics. Often they do not realise that their fundamental interests and rights may be in danger, so they need time to organise—to come together to put pressure on their rulers. For that to happen, we need the checks and balances provided by a second Chamber whose job is to delay things, to get in the way and to cause creative tension in the system.
	If we are to have a body with power to block, even for a short time—a year or so—how does that body choose which Bills to block and which to let through? How does it choose to block the Hunting Bill but not the Identity Cards Bill? If a body of people is to have that important power and choice, the only way it can legitimately exercise it is if it is elected. In a constitutional system, as the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) said, there will be other people—namely, constitutional judges—with the power to make Parliament think again, but in our system, we do not have that option at present. All we have is the second Chamber's power of delay. Any Chamber that has the power of delay, to allow the population to organise itself into opposition, must be elected; it cannot exist simply by power of patronage.
	On the propositions before the House, my position logically leads to my voting for 100 per cent. election, so why should I vote for anything else—apart from the fact that my party wants me to? I am prepared to put up with 80:20, because in a House with 80 per cent. elected, 20 per cent. selected, the likelihood that a proposition would go through because of the votes of the 20 per cent. is quite low. It would be possible for such a House to adopt a procedure that allowed it to think again if that were to be the case. In addition, 80:20 would give a House with a profoundly democratic culture—the 20 per cent. would be exceptional.

Julian Lewis: In light of the hon. Gentleman's earlier remonstrations about the problems of making appointments, how would he recommend that the 20 per cent. be appointed?

David Howarth: That is a good question; it shows the fundamental weakness of any appointments system, which is why I do not want many such people. Perhaps at some point random selection might be used.
	I draw a distinction between the 80:20 and 60:40 proposals. I fully understand the arguments for voting for any proposal that introduces some elected element, but the problem with the 60:40 proposal is the high risk that the votes of the 40 per cent. would determine the question. The internal culture of such a House would not necessarily be a culture of democracy, so for me 60:40 is a step too far at this stage. The 50:50 proposal would in no way lead to a predominantly democratic House.
	The question will return to the House in a different form later. We shall not be voting on legislation tomorrow, but on what might be called a "Straw" poll. If I were faced with the choice of 60:40 or nothing, I might come to a different conclusion, but we are not faced with that choice tomorrow, if I understand the procedure we are adopting, so I shall stick to my initial conclusion and vote for 100 per cent. or for 80:20.

John Bercow: The hon. Gentleman is an immensely perspicacious and intelligent fellow, but when he says what he has just said he should beware of who his friends are—people against reform.

David Howarth: I am fully aware of the dangers, but sometimes one has to vote against things that stand in the way of more radical reform later.

Shailesh Vara: This is the first time that I have spoken from the Front Bench in a substantive policy debate, so may I say what a privilege it is to follow so many eminent Members of the House across the divide?
	The other place has a long and distinguished past. It has had and continues to have many illustrious hard-working Members. We do well to remember that. However, the arguments for a reformed upper House are not new. Indeed, some 60 years ago, a Labour Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, said that the upper House was like a glass of champagne that had been left for five days.
	My party believes that there is an overwhelming case for reform. In both our 2001 and 2005 election manifestos, we were committed to a substantially elected upper Chamber. We want a democratic and accountable upper House that reflects the modern 21st century. It is indeed ironic at a time when the public is becoming ever more distanced and disenchanted with the political process that we may inadvertently be assisting that disenchantment by not allowing the public to have a say in the formation of the upper House.
	The hon. Member for Wirral, South (Ben Chapman) said that the standing of politicians was "low". Although I agree with him on that, I confess that I did not agree with his conclusion about how best to resolve the issue.
	A substantially elected upper Chamber would have greater legitimacy to question and amend Government policy. It will also allow for a greater breadth of expertise and enable its Members to operate with greater independence. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) summed it up well when he said that those who make the laws should be accountable to those for whom they are made—a sentiment echoed by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) when she said that those who legislate should be elected by those over whom they legislate.
	The arguments for legitimacy and accountability were also put by the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love), while the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) made clear her support for 50 per cent. and above to be elected members of the upper House.

Tom Levitt: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Shailesh Vara: I would like to, but there are time constraints and I am keen to ensure that the Government have their fair time as well, so I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.
	The arguments for legitimacy and accountability were also ably supported by the hon. Members for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) and for Cambridge (David Howarth).
	While there has been consensus and good will from all three major parties in favour of reform, it has to be said that the Government's handling of the process has been contradictory and confusing. The 1997 Labour manifesto promised to make the other place more democratic and representative. After removing most of the hereditary peers in 1999, completing the process of reform has slipped down the agenda—despite the subject being mentioned in no fewer than seven Queen's Speeches.
	It is not just procrastination; there has been a serious lack of direction. The 2001 Labour manifesto promised a more "democratic" upper House. However, four years later in the 2005 manifesto, the word "democratic" had disappeared and reference was made instead to a more "modern and effective" House. That change is hardly surprising, given that the Prime Minister voted for a wholly appointed House of Lords in 2003, saying that a hybrid of the two options was "wrong" and "will not work".
	Now, with a divided Cabinet, the Leader of the House has come up with a proposal to placate his disunited colleagues. The consequence is a wholly unsatisfactory 50:50 compromise. Incidentally, I am not one to be drawn by idle talk—well, not often, anyway—but there are whispers that the Prime Minister had indicated that, if he were to continue in power, he did not intend to use the Parliament Act in this matter. Given that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is likely to be the next Prime Minister, perhaps the deputy Leader of the House will enlighten us about whether the Chancellor will use the Parliament Act, if necessary.
	The White Paper goes nowhere near providing the reformed upper House required for today's Britain. The proposal that 50 per cent. of the other place should be elected on a list system means that party patronage will continue when determining who ranks where on the list. That is appointment by any other name. Add to that the 30 per cent. who would be directly appointed by the political parties and we would have an upper House that was effectively 80 per cent. appointed. So much for lessening the influence of the party machinery and ushering in greater democracy.

Jack Straw: I am happy to be criticised on what we have proposed, but not on what we have not proposed. Will the hon. Gentleman please desist from the practice of the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) in saying that we propose that the political appointees should be directly appointed by the political parties? That is simply untrue.

Shailesh Vara: The individuals will be nominated by the political parties and they will be drawn from a list. I leave the House to form its own conclusion. Incidentally, as far as the list system is concerned, the Liberal Democrats demonstrated their typical duplicity. The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), while arguing that the list system supported the patronage system, nevertheless had to concede that his party still supports the list system. It is regrettable that— [ Interruption. ] I am afraid that  Hansard will —[ Interruption. ]

Simon Hughes: We have argued for the single transferable vote, not the list system. If there were a list system, it would have to be a completely open list, but that is absolutely not our first choice.

Shailesh Vara: Anyone who knows even the slightest bit about proportional representation would agree that the list system falls into the realm of proportional representation, which is a policy that the Liberal Democrats have espoused for many years.
	It is regrettable that the White Paper has not demonstrated the boldness that this subject deserves and that it is a fudge to accommodate a divided Cabinet. In short, it is regrettable that the White Paper is not democratic enough. As for the hereditary peers, my party supports their removal from the other place, but only if they are replaced with elected Members. I very much hope that the Government will honour the then Lord Chancellor's commitment.
	The issue of primacy is of concern to all Members of the House, but it is not a new or insurmountable issue and it should not be viewed in such cautious terms. The Father of the House, among others, expressed his concern, but primacy has changed over the centuries, as the democratic and representative nature of Parliament has changed. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) spoke of what we are discussing being the next stage in the evolutionary process.

John Spellar: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Shailesh Vara: I am afraid that, for the reasons I gave earlier, I will not. I have only two or three minutes left, so I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me.
	If there is greater democracy in the upper House, primacy may well come into play once more, but we can deal with that challenge, as the House has in the past. I refer to the comments made earlier by my right hon. and learned Friends the Members for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) and for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Mr. Hogg), along with the comments made recently by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow). There are some who express anxiety about the future, on the basis that we do not know what the consequences of a more democratic upper Chamber will be. There is the argument that says, "If it ain't broken, don't fix it." Those who uttered such sentiments included my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples). He was supported in his concern by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), along with my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack). There are others in the House, such as the hon. Members for Eltham (Clive Efford) and for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) who said that the House should first address the concerns of this Chamber, rather than the upper Chamber.
	For my part, I will vote tomorrow for an 80 per cent. elected upper House, because I believe that that will bring more democracy and legitimacy and a greater breadth of membership, while still allowing, through a 20 per cent. appointed element, a great depth of expertise and experience. I hope that our deliberations and tomorrow's votes will lead to a reformed House that is truly capable of questioning and amending legislation and that is democratic and accountable while, at the same time, providing expertise and independence. Let us have an upper House that is truly ready to address the challenges of the 21st century.

Nigel Griffiths: There were many thoughtful and enlightened contributions among the 23 Back-Bench speeches that were made in our debate on the latest constitutional reform proposed by the Government. In the past decade, we have achieved human rights legislation, a freedom of information Act, devolution for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and an elected city government in Edinburgh.
	We began the reform of the House of Lords with the removal of most of the hereditary peers. That anomaly is simply not justifiable now, if it was in any age. We have presided over the most significant reform for eight decades. We established the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission, under the chairmanship of Lord Stevenson of Coddenham. We now propose to establish a statutory appointments commission.
	Almost everyone accepts that there is unfinished business in respect of the House of Lords. Let no one be in any doubt that what unites us in this House—across the political divide—and that what unites us with the House of peers is an unshakeable belief in the primacy of the elected House of Commons over any second Chamber, howsoever that is shaped. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House set out precisely how we have sought to secure that. Proposals were made by the royal commission that was chaired by Lord Wakeham, the Public Administration Committee and the Breaking the Deadlock group, which all favoured a part-elected, part-appointed second Chamber. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) and others for their words of thanks to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for his genuine responses to those reports.
	The Labour party has been committed to root-and-branch reform of the House of Lords for 100 years; others are more recent converts to the cause. The Conservative party and its manifestos were silent on the issue until 2005, although the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) has told his Back Benchers that this reform is a third-term priority. Perhaps that is new Tory speak for "manana", and the matter would be placed in the to-do file for about 12 years after his party formed some future Government. Was that what the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) meant when she said earlier, "We want a House of Lords elected by the many," although given the contributions of some of her Back-Bench colleagues, she seems to have used the "royal we" a little prematurely? Indeed, one experienced and senior Conservative Back Bencher called his party's proposals a crackpot idea.
	I noted that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead ignored the advice of the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames), who told the House last month:
	"There is absolutely no demand for this change or reform anywhere in the country."—[ Official Report, 7 February 2007; Vol. 456, c. 856.]
	Her counterpart in the House of Lords, Lord Strathclyde, asked that House to "pause for mature reflection" and requested time to consider the matter in "far more depth".
	The diversity of opinion in all parties was illustrated by the contributions to today's debate. At least three official Opposition Members called for a fully elected second Chamber. The hon. Members for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) and for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) argued for not changing the House of Lords at all. At least they were being true to their principles of conservatism, although I wondered whether some filial loyalty had crept in with the hon. Member for North Essex and thought that he had perhaps been listening to someone along the corridor. As I listened to his speech, I was reminded of Mark Twain—or was it Samuel Johnson?—who said that at 16 he thought that his father was stupid, but in the intervening period—four years in the hon. Member's case—he was surprised by how much the old man had learned. I make no criticism of the hon. Member for North Essex for changing his mind—that would be more than my job is worth—and many hon. Members have shown a refreshing honesty in stating how they came to hold the position that they are urging hon. Members to vote for tomorrow.
	We heard a clear call for a unicameral Chamber from my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth). The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), speaking for the Liberal Democrats, was reminded of the views of the former leader of his party, Lord Steel of Aikwood, who last month said:
	"I think the worst thing would be the hybrid that has been suggested. The minute you have an elected second Chamber, I think it will destroy the relationship between the two Houses."
	That is the Liberal Democrats all over: they say one thing here, and another thing 300 yards away. I urge hon. Members to heed the plea of the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), who accepts that "predominantly" embraces the 60 per cent. proposal. That may be the way for hon. Members to achieve a considerable proportion of what they want.
	The royal commission that met under Lord Wakeham produced an option under which 87 of the 550 Members of the second Chamber would be elected. The White Paper that followed proposed that a higher proportion—120 out of 600, which is the 20 per cent. figure—be elected. It was not my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, or the Government, who proposed a very long term of office for Members elected to the other place. A term of some 15 years was proposed by the royal commission.

Tom Levitt: On the 15-year term, does my hon. Friend accept that Members of the House of Commons become accountable only when we are first elected, and are held to account only when we put ourselves up for re-election? If someone is in office for 15 years and cannot be re-elected, how can they be held to account?

Nigel Griffiths: The debate is about whether a repeat election would challenge the primacy of the House of Commons and give Members of the other place a legitimacy that went beyond what the Chamber wanted to give them, and that was what the royal commission considered. That was the key reason Lord Wakeham and his colleagues proposed a single term, with a quarantine period at the end to deter anyone from using membership of the second Chamber as a platform to campaign to become a Member of Parliament.
	All three main parties are committed to a more substantial reform of the second Chamber. All of them want an elected element, and there is no reason why, tomorrow, we cannot agree on the basis for moving that reform forward. I urge those hon. Members who were not present today to read  Hansard and to consider the many thoughtful contributions made today. I urge them to attend the debate tomorrow and make sure that they absorb the further points made then. We did not do ourselves credit the last time we attempted reform, although I accept that hon. Members who got the result that they wanted—that is, no change—were pleased with the end result. However, not even they took any comfort from the process, and the way in which it was undertaken, which was no credit to us. I put it no more strongly than that.

Chris Bryant: I hope that my hon. Friend will tell us how he will vote tomorrow.

Nigel Griffiths: My voting intentions will be to secure the objectives of the Government. If I achieve that, I can hold my head high and say that we have done something that we have not been able to do in the past 98 years, including in 2003. My record speaks for itself—on the previous occasion, I voted for every option that offered maximum democracy and the election of Members to the House of Lords, and I intend to do the same tomorrow. I urge all hon. Members to reflect on today's debate, and to return tomorrow with a firm intention to make history and provide a second Chamber that is fit for the 21st century. We should be confident of the role that we play in the Chamber and of its primacy in our legislature. We should ensure that those who are elected or appointed, or whatever we decide, in the other place, have the means to—
	 It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
	 Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

Estimates

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 145 (Liaison Committee) ,
	That this House agrees with the Report [2nd March] of the Liaison Committee . —[Mr. Roy.]
	 Question agreed to.

SITTINGS IN WESTMINSTER HALL

Ordered,
	That, on Thursday 29th March, there shall be no sitting in Westminster Hall. —[Mr. Roy.]

RADIO MICROPHONES

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Mr. Roy.]

Peter Luff: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on an important subject, and to the Minister for Industry and the Regions for coming to the Chamber to reply. I know that there is a limit to what she can say because of the nature and timing of the Ofcom consultation, so we have agreed it will not cause a problem if I stray over the usual 15-minute limit on Back-Bench contributions.
	My purpose is to alert Parliament, all users of radio mikes and the general public to a real and present danger—I believe that Ofcom is now aware of it—caused by Ofcom's proposal to auction the spectrum, which has been freed up by the move from analogue to digital terrestrial television. Until recently, that was regarded as an exclusively good thing, enabling a whole range of new uses for one of the most valuable commodities of the modern world—the radio magnetic spectrum. It has become apparent, however, that there is a potential casualty—the radio or wireless microphone. It may not sound serious at first blush, but closer examination shows that it could be a significant problem. My hon. Friend the Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale), who chairs the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, shares my concerns. Given my chairmanship of the Trade and Industry Committee, that means that the Chairmen of both Committees to which Ofcom is accountable in the House are worried about the issue.
	For the technically minded, when I use the phrase, "radio mike", I may be referring to a range of crucial wireless gadgets such as wireless in-ear monitor systems, wireless talkback systems and wireless instrument systems. There is even a Downing street petition on the subject with about 6,000 signatures, including that of Gillian Lynne, who is perhaps the most distinguished choreographer in the world and the genius behind "Cats" and many other theatrical triumphs. I hope that the petition will attract many more signatures, although they may not reach road pricing levels. Ofcom is highly regarded, and rightly so, but it is only beginning to understand how serious the issue is and how incomplete its initial understanding of it was. That is not intended as a criticism, as it is a highly technical subject involving a plethora of firms, organisations and individuals. Indeed, despite having immersed myself in it for several days, I am apprehensive lest I make a serious gaffe in my brief remarks.
	I could have entitled the debate, "The implications of Ofcom's actions and the threat to the use of interleaved spectrum by the programme-making and special events sector", but I would lose my audience very quickly. That may be why the issue has taken so long to gain traction. Unless—and I think that it may be the case—there is substantial change to Ofcom's proposals, we run the serious risk that some very bad things will happen. I must declare an interest: I am a passionate fan of musical theatre, and I am delighted that my son is studying at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art on a stage management and technical theatre course. His account of the gloom among his professional tutors is one reason why I wished to speak on the subject.
	The loss of spectrum for radio microphones would mean many things, including an end to west end musicals. The use of radio mikes to achieve the necessary volume and co-ordinate the stage crew is essential, so it would be goodbye to "Phantom of the Opera", "The Lion King", "Evita", "Spamalot", "Porgy and Bess" and the rest, as they would have to close. Gillian Lynne told me:
	"'Cats', one of the most innovative shows ever staged, could never have worked without radio mics. No one could dance at that technical virtuosity and pace and sing flat out, as the performers have to, without radio mics. That show has boosted English expertise and creativity world wide and made a great deal of money for this country."
	Some opera companies use radio mikes too, and touring productions like Raymond Gubbay's operas in the round just would not happen. Tours by stars of the music world, whether that is Elton John doing his back catalogue at England's cricket grounds, Kylie Minogue strutting her stuff, George Michael's stylish pop, or Arctic Monkeys' raucous rock, would all end.

Rob Marris: The hon. Gentleman is arguing against himself, now!

Peter Luff: There are some arguments on the other side. I shall come to that later.
	There would be an end to all UK film making, including most television drama—they all use radio mikes now, not the old boom mikes. Think of "The West Wing", with its long continuous shots in corridors and offices. That is what audiences expect, and radio mikes are needed to do it. Lord Puttnam—David Puttnam—told me:
	"In the past decade the film and television industry has moved to a point at which virtually all sound recording is now down to using wireless technology."
	So no radio mikes means that no more British triumphs, like "The Queen", will be made in Britain and, by the way, no Bollywood extravaganzas will be filmed at British locations, either.
	TV news gathering would also grind to a halt. All outside broadcasts now depend on radio mikes and spectrum for the cameras to transmit footage back to the outside broadcast van. One cannot have trailing cables at scenes of terrorist outrages like 7/7, and one cannot have single-handed film crews interviewing people, including MPs, if they have to hold a furry mike in front of the interviewee as well as operate the camera. ITV told me:
	"Access to these channels has been essential to ITV's effective operation and news coverage; they are used to service talkback and radio microphones, on location and in studios. To date, the Joint Frequency Management Group has effectively managed allocation of spectrum to broadcasters, ensuring efficient and effective use of radio spectrum to serve broadcast needs.
	Any potential loss of the ability to operate radio microphones will compromise the quality of the news service they can provide nationally and locally.
	Over the years, ITV has made a significant investment in these systems, and the future viability of this investment will be in doubt."
	Outside sports broadcasts, from Formula 1 to the rugby World cup, depend on radio mikes for the reporters and camera crews to cover the event, and even to let us hear the referee's comments to players. One of the best inventions in TV coverage of cricket, the snickometer, would also be endangered. As for the possible effect on the 2012 Olympics, the BBC told me:
	"It is difficult to see how the UK can meet the commitments it set out in its bid regarding access to spectrum."
	Major special events would suffer in particular, as they make huge use of the spectrum, so no more "Children in Need", no more televised 80th birthday parties for Her Majesty, no more Brit awards, no more VE-day celebrations, no more Band Aid or Live8. Finally, perhaps my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) might never have become Leader of the official Opposition without a radio mike. He needed one to walk confidently around the stage at Blackpool in October 2005, delivering to that imposing hall and a wider television audience his barnstorming and inspiring speech.
	One of our greatest screen and stage actors, Patrick Stewart, of "Star Trek" and "X-Men" fame, said to me, also making the point that even if the actors do not need mikes, the backstage crew do:
	"Modern entertainment depends on the use of wireless equipment to communicate. I am currently in 'The Tempest' in the West End and the stage management rely on radio technology to do their work. The same is true for film making and other forms of entertainment.
	If access to the spectrum became unaffordable or unavailable, the British entertainment industry would be severely handicapped and perhaps even grind to a halt. It would be disastrous."
	There is, however, one silver lining—no radio mikes would mean an end to reality television, and programmes like "Big Brother" would no longer grace our screens!
	The programme making and special events, or PMSE, sector is a disparate and diverse community of content producers, manufacturers, rental organisations and freelance engineers.

John Barrett: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the PMSE industry has neither the finance nor the organisation to bid through an auction to Ofcom for the spectrum? That is the heart of the problem. If it is forced into an auction, it will not win it.

Peter Luff: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who I know takes a close interest in the subject. He anticipates remarks that I shall make later and he is entirely right.
	The sector, with its vast diversity of people, plays a critical role in the British entertainment industry. It represents over 100,000 professionals who belong to organisations such as Equity, the Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union, SOLT—the Society of London Theatres, the Association of Motion Picture Sound, and the Musicians Union. It relies very largely on the unused spectrum that interleaves between existing analogue TV broadcasts, to enable the use of radio microphones.
	The UHF spectrum for TV broadcasting has 49 channels numbered 21 to 69. Each channel is 8 MHz wide, enough for eight radio mikes—in some circumstances, up to 16. The only UK channel dedicated to radio mikes is Channel 69, so when more than eight systems are needed in one location, Joint Frequency Management Group—JFMG—allocates other channels as required. That is possible because of the low power of radio mikes compared with TV transmitters. A radio mike needs to communicate with its receiver over only a few hundred yards.
	About 180,000 wireless units use this spectrum at 45,000 different events, from small-scale ones such as church fetes using a single frequency to much larger live events that might use up to 240 frequencies. I recently went to a drama school musical production that used about 14 channels, while a west end production will use four or five times as many. Responding to public demand, there is a growing trend in live entertainment towards much larger live events, such as Live 8, which require very significant frequency capacity.
	Following digital switchover, in each region some channels will be cleared and some re-used to allow expanded digital television coverage. There will be new interleaved spectrum, but at different frequencies from the current interleaved spectrum, demanding massive new investment by everyone using radio mikes even if they can access the spectrum. Crucially, Ofcom proposes to auction this new interleaved spectrum. Bizarrely, it said in a letter to me:
	"We have not identified anything intrinsic to the nature of professional PMSE use that would preclude a bid that reflected its value."
	I think that it now understands that it did not look hard enough. It says:
	"Our conclusion was based on the observation that this use forms part of a commercially viable industry, which is capable of funding the purchase of other inputs to its business as it deems necessary."
	However, there is no single "commercially viable industry"—there is a massively disparate community making much more extensive use of the spectrum, often ingeniously, than Ofcom realises. Its offer of free access to the new spectrum to the end of 2012 showed a worrying lack of understanding of the sector, its use of the spectrum, and the cost of changing to new frequencies. Indeed, given that Ofcom intends to abolish the organisation that currently co-ordinates the spectrum, JFMG, it is not even clear how it would ensure access to the new spectrum at all.
	How much of this community is commercially viable? Theatre is on a constant knife edge. Yes, the big blockbusters make money, but only a lucky few have ever made their fortune out of the stage. Are the BBC and ITV awash with cash to fund new equipment and massive new charges for access to spectrum? Do the charities which benefit from major events really want to hand over enormous sums to the Treasury to pay for this spectrum? Even the relatively rich music industry believes that there are not enough superstars touring with high-income events to enable venues to continue to afford sufficient access to the spectrum—and they need a lot of it. A recent George Michael concert used 17 frequencies for in-ear monitoring and 24 for radio mikes.
	Ofcom has laboured under a number of misapprehensions which have, until now, hampered its ability to engage successfully with the issue. They include its estimate of the size of the PMSE sector; on a related point, its ignorance as to the large number of unlicensed users; and the true value of redundant equipment and of the time needed to re-equip. Recently, though, things have been changing, and Ofcom has been engaging more positively with the sector. The auction process is a sensible mechanism for many sectors interested in the digital dividend review— the DDR. However, for the PMSE community, which has well-established grandfather rights for the use of this spectrum, and is absolutely dependent on access to it, the auction process is unacceptable. Interestingly, one sector—radio astronomy—is already rightly protected from the full pressure of the market, so there is a precedent for special treatment.
	I have to ask, perhaps on a slightly more partisan note, to what extent this process is being driven by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. With the public finances under pressure, the prospect of a repeat of the staggering success of the 3G spectrum auction in April 2000 must be very appealing, but when he becomes Prime Minister, does he really want to preside over the ending of so much pleasure? It would confirm many people's prejudices if he did.
	The crucial point is that all the other bidders in an auction—even high-definition television—would be new users of the spectrum. Only one existing use is threatened—radio mikes. Those who are providing this crucial service have those grandfather rights. They are already there, providing a service greatly valued by society, and they should be protected in some way. There is no other use of this spectrum of which that is true.
	What are the dangers to the sector of the auction process? The sector unanimously agrees that it is impossible for it to enter a simple auction system for spectrum release. It has three main grounds for saying that. In detailing them, I shall deal with some of the comments of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett).
	First, the spectrum cannot organise a bid. It is a disparate and diverse community of content producers, manufacturers, rental organisations and others. Many of its members are extremely small. They do not possess the financial resources, nor is there a mechanism to co-ordinate bidding for the collective needs of the community.
	Secondly, there is the nature of the competition. The sector genuinely believes that it could not be successful in securing spectrum at auction. The other bidders have huge financial muscle. The turnover of the entire world-wide radio mike manufacturing industry is approximately £l billion a year. By contrast, Vodafone alone has a turnover of nearly £30 billion. Dell, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, Apple and many more IT and communications giants will also be bidding.
	The third danger is the cost. The certainty of losing in an auction process is increased by the estimated value of the likely bids. Ofcom's supposition that the spectrum is likely to be of only limited value is undermined by both a letter from Dell Corporation about its value and by Vodafone's public comments on the implications of the digital dividend.
	Worse, with powerful commercial forces up against a disparate sector, there is a genuine prospect of spectrum hoarding—"land-banking" of spectrum for future possible uses. They do not make spectrum any more, and one of the IT giants could decide to take pre-emptive action to squeeze competitors out of the market. That would mean "Bye-bye PMSE."
	Then there is the question of equipment. It is worth spending some time on that. The suggestion by Ofcom that around only £10 million worth of equipment would become redundant as part of the DDR is wrong and underestimates the figure by at least a factor of five. One medium-sized company, Autograph Sound, has approximately £7 million worth of affected equipment.
	The PMSE sector must be given sufficient time to amortise the value of current equipment that will become redundant. A considerable amount of it will be unsuitable for upgrading because of the restriction of the hazardous substances directive.
	Even fully depreciated equipment holds commercial value because of its longevity and the rental nature of part of the sector. Equipment filters down through the industry. Ofcom's proposed changes would abruptly end the life cycle of the equipment by making it redundant.
	The timetable for spectrum release must be sufficiently long to allow the manufacturing industry to produce a sufficient quantity of new equipment for the new frequencies. It is an international industry, so it cannot change everything just to suit the British market. It will need time to avoid disruption to production. Anyway, will international artistes really want to abandon the kit that they use everywhere else simply to perform a UK tour?
	Ofcom proposes the deregulation of Channel 69, but it may be a bad idea. Existing PMSE needs, as well as those of amateurs, require interference-free use of spectrum. If the PMSE sector continues to use Channel 69 professionally, it is certain that sound production will suffer from interference. It is absolutely fundamental that the spectrum used by the PMSE community should be licensed and co-ordinated by a successor to JFMG.
	Ofcom's argument that the current system offers no security of tenure is bizarre. Until the DDR, there was no risk to the sector's use of the spectrum. Ofcom and the review created the risk and now it wants to take the credit for a solution to a problem that it invented.
	I believe that market-based, flexible solutions are good, but there are always exceptions, such as the radio astronomers, who could not afford to pay for the spectrum they use. Let us be clear: PMSE users accept that change is inevitable and that that will mean a higher price. I think that they accept Ofcom's view that current prices probably do not even cover the regulator's costs, but one does not need the perils of a full auction to correct that. The price could simply be increased.
	There must be an acceptable medium-term solution to permit investment in new equipment. The JFMG has an important co-ordinating role that must be protected. Perhaps some appropriate spectrum could be allocated on an annual rental basis to a successor to JFMG. That successor would be independent of Ofcom, which would not therefore be responsible for the organisation. The sector could bid for additional spectrum that it would ideally like, but with the comfort of some security. The new JFMG could charge and police authorised spectrum usage by the PMSE sector. Whatever happens, there must be a smooth transition to the new spectrum allocation world, with a longer time scale than that currently envisaged by Ofcom.
	I emphasise that I respect Ofcom, and I am sure that the consultation is genuine and poses it real challenges in balancing competing demands. However, there is not much time left. The sector must come together even more closely than it has so far to express a coherent view and offer a possible solution to this real problem. Individual points of view, however, are also valuable: short letters making one or two points to Ofcom will have their impact. The consultation ends on 20 March. My appeal to the sector is that it makes its voice heard so that a real danger is prevented.
	Earlier, I quoted Patrick Stewart, who is currently playing Prospero in "The Tempest". I say to the Minister, and through her to Ofcom, that there will be a tempest of public outrage if this goes wrong. Adapting Prospero's final soliloquy, I say:
	"Now I want
	Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
	And my ending is despair,
	Unless I be relieved by Ofcom,
	Which pierces so that it assaults
	Mercy itself and frees all spectrum.
	As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
	Let your indulgence keep radio mics free."

Margaret Hodge: I think that that should continue:
	"Be cheerful sir,
	We are such stuff
	As dreams are made on".
	I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Peter Luff) on securing this debate. I assure all those who have waited for this Adjournment debate that there is no way in which, as a result of the auction of spectrum, access to "Porgy and Bess", Elton John, "Cats", the Arctic Monkeys on tour, about which I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will be delighted, and "Big Brother"—whatever the hon. Gentleman feels about it, I am sure that his constituents will want it to continue—will cease.
	The hon. Gentleman has a son at LAMDA, and I have a daughter who is slightly ahead of his son and has ambitions to become a theatre director. I am therefore as conscious as he is of the issue. The right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) might have done better without a radio mike, as he might then have avoided some of the flip-flop accusations that Labour Members are constantly able to hurl at him.
	More seriously, the Government realise that radio spectrum is a scarce resource. It is of vital importance for the UK in the modern world, and we must carefully consider all the issues that arise. We therefore welcome Ofcom's open and consultative approach, as, I think, does the hon. Gentleman.
	In this country, the industries that use spectrum, such as mobile communications and broadcasting, account for about 3 per cent. of the economy, which is a greater share than that of some utilities. As the hon. Gentleman will know, spectrum is also an essential input into numerous public services, from defence to the emergency services, and from scientific research to transport. The demand for spectrum is growing rapidly. In part, that reflects greater innovation in wireless technologies and applications of many different kinds; in part, it stems from the fact that wireless services have unique features that are valued by everyone, such as convenience and mobility.
	It is generally agreed that the digital dividend spectrum is among the most valuable spectrum in the UK, offering the right mix of range, penetration and capacity. That unique combination of properties drives the high demand for spectrum. That is the background against which the requirements of specific users must be discussed.
	This spectrum has plenty of potential users from many areas, such as community use wireless microphones, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, more digital terrestrial television, particularly at local level, and high-definition television. Innovative uses are also being developed such as wireless broadband, and there are potential low-power uses that may not yet have reached the market.
	Ofcom's duty includes ensuring the optimal use of spectrum for the UK. Both Ofcom and the Government—and, I think, the hon. Gentleman—are of the opinion that spectrum is most efficiently and effectively allocated via a market mechanism. The rising importance of spectrum, however, means that the way in which it is managed is a vital issue. One of Ofcom's most important objectives is therefore to ensure that the use of spectrum brings as many benefits as possible to UK citizens and consumers—the public duty. I assure him that Ofcom is not driven by any Treasury diktat to extract maximum revenue from spectrum allocation.
	As the hon. Gentleman said, the PMSE community currently makes significant use of the digital dividend spectrum to provide all the services that he mentioned. The joint frequency management group manages those assignments on Ofcom's behalf. Various parts of the radio spectrum are made available to JFMG for such use, including current interleaved spectrum—the "white" spaces between transmitters—and Channel 69, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. Owing to improved technology, while the amount of spectrum available may be less after switchover, Ofcom believes that the capacity for potential PMSE use will be approximately the same. I hope the hon. Gentleman is reassured by that.
	In its consultation and the policy that it is developing, Ofcom is distinguishing between two categories of PMSE use: professional use, on which the hon. Gentleman's speech focused, and community use, which is very important and involves church halls, community meetings, tennis association meetings and meetings to discuss local issues. Those two categories will be treated differently as we think through the digital review.
	Ofcom's consultation makes it clear that it is aware of the concerns of those involved in programme making and special events. The concerns expressed by the hon. Gentleman will be brought to the regulator's attention as part of the consultation process. The debate has made a valuable contribution to discussion of this topic, and I hope it will raise awareness among the PMSE community.
	In the context of professional use, Ofcom has recognised the risk of disruption to which the hon. Gentleman alluded. That is why it has suggested a phased change in spectrum management. It proposes to require that the spectrum continues to be made available for professional PMSE use until at least 2012, as much as anything to avoid the risk of disruption that might be caused by the Olympic games. Ofcom has promised to work closely with the professional user community to develop the proposals, and to manage any period of transition that is necessary.
	I assure the hon. Gentleman that individual users will not have to organise a bid. I think there has been some misunderstanding about that. What they will have to do is go to a new contractor who will have secured the interleaved spectrum. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there will be a price impact, partly because the current prices do not entirely cover the cost to the regulator and partly because if the spectrum is auctioned there will be an element of profit. I think that about two thirds of the costs are currently met. New equipment will present a cost, and I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we must ensure that the transition is appropriate.
	I am well aware of the possibility of hoarding. Ofcom is examining the issue, and I hope that it will come back to us.
	Ofcom will publish a further discussion document specifically on PMSE after the current consultation, potentially dealing with transitional arrangements. The Government welcome that listening approach on the regulator's part, and will be interested in the outcome of any further discussion of any transitional period. We will be interested to hear ideas from those on all sides about potential frameworks for PMSE spectrum use beyond 2012.
	Where PMSE is currently used for community use, we recognise that there is a market failure and acknowledge the wider social impact that that could have on communities. Reserving Channel 69 for wireless microphones and deregulating access for PMSE community users is the proposed solution, and I think that it will work.
	The Government recognise that it is important to enable people to use radio microphones appropriately. They are essential not only for on-stage and off-stage entertainment, special events and outside broadcasts, but for churches, schools, colleges and town halls. We acknowledge that the PMSE sector is one of the only current users of the digital dividend review spectrum that is being required to change the way in which it works, and we fully understand the need for a period of transition. However, we are keen for all industries and public-sector bodies to examine their spectrum use, innovating with technology where possible in order to make more efficient and effective use of that spectrum. We also want them to value resources at market rates in order to benefit the United Kingdom as a whole.
	We have been working closely with Ofcom both before and during the DDR consultation, and we are taking a keen interest in the responses to that consultation. We are aware of the issues that have been raised today, and we encourage everyone to contact Ofcom. I hope that by working together the regulator and the industry can achieve a workable solution that will benefit United Kingdom citizens and consumers. I can reassure the House that the issue is important to us.
	 The motion having been made at Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Speaker  adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
	 Adjourned at half-past Ten o'clock.